The Chosen One
by sohna
Summary: A Star Wars Quantum Leap xover. The night following Anakin's meeting with Palpatine at the ballet, Sam jumps into Anakin to save him from turning to the Dark Side. AU for both series. Quantum Leap time conflict explained in story.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes:_ Discrepancies with the QL premise (time restrictions, body switching) will be explained within the story (but not necessarily right away), and as part of the story. This alternate universe story takes place some time after Sam has jumped into Al. Seeing _Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith_ will probably help in understanding the story, but probably is not entirely necessary. This story is being listed in QL while it is in progress, but when complete will be moved to the Star Wars category.

* * *

Sam felt the momentary disorientation at the onset of the jump. He'd experienced it so often now, he recognized each nuance of the process. The world before him vanished, and ... 

Darkness engulfed him. Not the momentary darkness of transition, but a vast expanse, like the emptiness of space. It was too long. Fighting down panic, he forced himself to stay calm, to analyze the situation like the scientist he was. There might be several reasons for the total absence of light - the most logical being that he had arrived somewhere underground, in an unlit cave or mine. Only ... there would be other feelings associated with that; his other senses should tell him something, and ...

He realized then that he had no other senses. He was adrift, an intellect, an isolated ego, floating bodilessly in the ether. It was his worst nightmare, what he'd feared might happen each time he made the jump; dissociation, being lost forever in between times. If he'd had a mouth, he would have screamed; had he eyes, he would have cried. But he had neither, so he merely floated, a bubble of thought, on currents for which he had no name.

Gradually, he became aware of tiny pinpoints of light in the blackness of his surroundings; glittering dots like far-away stars. His thoughts smiled to see them even as he wondered how it was possible. Their existence was reassuring somehow, as if they wished him peace, and wanted him to know he was not so wholly alone. He relaxed a bit, drifting, wondering if his mind would be further swiss-cheesed by this experience - wondering if he'd ever get the chance to find out ...

The darkness returned like a cloud of dark matter obscuring the far-away lights, its presence no longer an innocent nothingness, but malignant, gluttonous. Soon his view of the lights would be gone, and he could do nothing to stop it; he was nothing but thought. Unless there was some way thought could be used as a tool ...

------

The weight of his body rushed into him and he felt himself slammed against the ground where he sat by gravity, a leaden burden. Waves of nausea flowed through him; his ears rang, and his head felt as if it were going to explode. His eyes still squeezed tightly shut, he huddled on the cold floor where he had at last arrived, wondering for a moment why he had wanted to. He'd never felt so sick upon arrival, not even the time when he'd gone to ancient Egypt. _Or had he?_ he wondered through the fog of pain. But the fog lifted slightly then, and he thought he understood the illness to be from his extended stay in-between. He swallowed down bile, hoping he wouldn't have to endure the same for his return trip; if so, he wasn't looking forward to it.

Collecting himself, he breathed deeply in and out, beginning a series of breathing exercises he vaguely remembered knowing, but which came back to him quickly with the practice. He felt his racing heart slow, his tensed muscles relaxed a bit, and the incessant nausea abated, though his stomach still felt tender. The headache dimmed, but didn't go away entirely, and the ringing in his ears persisted. Still, it was a marked improvement over the way he'd felt upon arrival. Only, now that he felt a bit better, there were other discomforts to notice.

His hands and feet were freezing, and he realized he could also feel the cold of the floor through the seat of his pants. He also had the taste of vomit in his mouth, which gave him pause. He hadn't actually thrown up, had he? He couldn't remember doing so. He'd been sitting in this one position since he'd gotten here, and hadn't moved.

Curiosity overcame him and, against his better judgement (since he could tell the room was well-lit through his eyelids and wasn't sure what effect the bright light might have on his still-pounding head), he cracked his eyes open. He was in a bathroom with cream-colored fixtures and peach-colored tile, sitting on the cold floor beside the john. At least he presumed it was a john; it could have been a bidet; it looked a little odd. His headache dimmed as his curiosity grew, pinging around inside his head, desperately looking for a place to hide. But he killed it entirely when he looked down, his arms still folded across his tender stomach, to see why his feet were so cold. They were bare. And the pants he had on were not his own. Then he spread his arms to inspect the rest of himself and got a bigger shock: His right hand was made of metal.

He stared at it in awe, an ugly, bony claw, articulated in imitation of the bones it was meant to replace. _Oh, boy,_ he thought, fascinated, as he flexed it, hearing the tiny servo-motors whine. He realized that he still had a sense of the hand's existence, as he'd read many amputees claimed. Curiously, he pulled back his sleeve to see how far the appliance extended, and found it snugly fused to the end of his arm just below his elbow, a perfect fit, with no sign of irritation (nor did he feel any, he realized).

For a few moments, he sat on the bathroom floor and considered his options. He was in the future, no doubt about that, he thought, the hand itself was living proof. Prosthetic science was woefully far behind, having produced no viable new products in the past fifty years. On a positive note, he was glad to see that such advancements would be made during his lifetime. But the other fact he now knew, he was less able to categorize: Obviously, he was no longer in his own body, but instead in the person he'd come to help, a man of roughly the same size, shape, and weight as himself, but definitely not him. Study of the left hand - the good hand - told him that; the fingers were not his. And the man had callouses, as one who does manual labor, though his nails were well-manicured. He was also very sick, not with a physical ailment (Sam had recovered too quickly upon arrival for it to be that), but with an enormous emotional burden, which was of great concern to Sam, because if Sam were in his body, then he could be almost certain the man was in Sam's. The thought of the stress his body would be under from its guest was enough to light a fire under him to get started, hoping he'd be able to tackle the problem quickly and go home (to his own body, at least, if not in time).

He pushed himself to a standing position and walked over to the mirror, still in place over the sink (he marveled at the ubiquitousness of mirrors and sinks together, even far into the future). Looking back at him was a young man (quite young, he thought, somewhere in his early twenties, perhaps) with piercing red-rimmed eyes in a chalk-white face.

"Okay," he whispered to his reflection, "Let's get you out of your fix. You're so young; hopefully it's not nearly as bad as you think."

He stared down at the faucet, realized it must be motion-sensitive, and waved his left hand under it. After a second, it obliged him, and he cupped the water to his mouth to try to wash out the taste. Thinking there must be a medicine cabinet (or some equivalent), he glanced around, but saw nothing that suggested itself.

He'd just grabbed a towel to dry his face when he heard the music. The ringing in his ears had dimmed to a dull background noise, though it never really faded completely. But now, superimposed upon it, he heard the tinkling, like far away chimes in the wind, though he knew this also was inside his own head; not a real noise in the outer world. Though it got no louder, it slowly intensified, and he was reminded suddenly of the tiny pinpoints of light that he had seen without needing his eyes, and of the peace and companionship he'd felt from them.

A soft rap sounded at the door, and a woman's voice called, "Ani?"

Momentarily nonplused, he stammered, "I ... um ..." and the door opened.

She stood in the doorway and stared at him, eyes huge in a heart-shaped face, hair a cascade of long dark curls, shoulders bare of the blue-green froth of nightgown that spilled to the floor from a ribbon at her throat, in the last trimester of pregnancy.

"Did it happen again?" she asked in concern, reaching to hold him.

Instinctively, he put his hand to his mouth, knowing that his breath would smell like his tongue tasted. She drew back, alarmed.

"You were sick?" she asked. He didn't answer. "Oh, Ani," she cried, a small crease forming between her eyebrows as she put her arms around him and held him close. At a loss for anything else to do, he returned her embrace, feeling the baby move inside her where she pressed up against him, hearing the soft, soothing tinkle of the far-away chimes ...

They were coming from her, not from far away. Not audibly, no, he'd understood that from the beginning, but were a subliminal vibration that resounded inside his head _(inside his heart)._

"Are you ..." he began, "are you wearing something musical?"

She looked up at him, perplexed.

"No," she said. "Why? Do you hear something?"

"I thought ..." he started to say, then decided better of it. He didn't know anything about these people yet. Best to be safe. "Never mind. It's not important."

It might have been the worst thing he could have said.

"Anakin!" she exclaimed, and he was surprised to see tears well in her eyes. "Don't ... don't do this. You can't ... you can't just hold everything inside; it's what's making you sick." One tear overflowed and spilled down her cheek. He wiped it away, stroking her back, wanting to reassure her, but remained silent in the hope she was about to bring up something important. He felt like a louse for doing it, especially when she didn't continue.

Finally, he said, "Should we get back to bed?"

For a moment, she didn't move, then, finally, with a last squeeze, she acquiesced, and led him from the bathroom out into a short gallery with curved windows on each side. He looked out ...

... and stopped, transfixed by the sight. He stood in a penthouse apartment in a vast city, but not like one he'd ever seen. Traffic slewed past, not only from the street (which he was not sure he could even see), but from multiple levels above. Headlights described white ribbons on the walls of buildings, otherworldly spires with a fantastical quality that was reminiscent of art deco and ultramodern at the same time, come together as neither ...

"Ani?"

The worry in her tone was more evident now than before. He ripped his eyes from the futuristic scene and saw raw fear in her face as she stared at him. He'd acted stupidly, he thought; he'd have to be more careful.

"I'm okay," he told her, watching the acceptance of his comment in her face as he followed her obediently to the bedroom, which, fortunately, was outfitted with an ordinary looking bed. As he climbed into it beside her, his last thought before he fell asleep was that Anakin's wife had all the signs of a woman who knew beyond a doubt there was something dreadfully wrong with her husband, but couldn't bear to face it. Sam hoped he had come here to put that right.


	2. Chapter 2

"Excuse me, sir, but it's time to wake up," a male voice stage-whispered in Sam's ear.

He felt a gentle prod at his shoulder and opened his eyes to see two glowing yellow disks in the still-dark room. Still half-asleep, he drew back from them with an involuntary gasp. The disks blinked abruptly off and back on, drawing away from him as well, and the voice let out a small shriek (that was nevertheless still carefully kept at a near whisper). Sam sat up, the memory of the previous evening and his unusual jump flooding back to him. He looked down at Anakin's wife, still sleeping quietly beside him, and eased himself out of bed. In the dim light he could now see that the glowing disks belonged to a shiny robot of some sort that had evidently been programmed to wake him. Idly he wondered what time it was, though it didn't matter - it was time for Anakin to get going - to work, he supposed. He walked back out into the gallery towards the bathroom, glancing outside at the fantastical landscape. The robot followed him; he could hear its servo-motors faintly whine and also see its reflection in the glass of the windows. It seemed to be carrying something.

Sam didn't bother to stop; just walked into the bathroom and closed the door before the robot followed him in there, too. The lights were motion-sensitive, so he didn't have to fumble for them; he simply strode to the john (what he'd hoped was the john) and relieved himself. It gave him a small measure of confidence that he could do at least that much without letting his surroundings - and new identity - overwhelm him. Only when he was finished, he found that was all he could do. As he glanced around the room, he realized he had no idea where the shower even was, let alone how to operate it. The sink he could handle, but shaving would be another matter. For a second he toyed with the idea of letting Anakin decide to grow a beard, but the thought had only just occurred to him when the door opened and the robot peered around the corner.

"I'm terribly sorry to bother you, sir, but you left your clothes in the bedroom," it said, then came into the room with the bundle it was carrying and set it down. A sudden idea occurred to Sam.

"I ... ah ... seem to have misplaced my shaving ... equipment," he told the robot. "Do you have any idea where it might be?"

The robot assumed a curious stance, then toddled, servo-motors whirring, to the wall beside the sink, pressed once on what Sam had thought was simply a piece of fancy paneling, and a cabinet popped open. The robot turned back to him.

"It's right here, sir, where it always is," it said. Was he mistaking it or did it sound a bit perplexed? "Will you be needing anything else?"

"Um ... not at the moment," he said. "Maybe later."

It had no sooner closed the door than Al flickered into view beside him.

"Al!" he exclaimed, more relieved than he would have imagined. But his friend only scratched his ear and peered at him dubiously.

"Sam?" he asked tentatively.

"Al ... Yes! Al ..." - he was trying to talk too fast and he knew it; deliberately, he forced himself to slow down - "He must be there in my body, isn't he?"

Al visibly relaxed, looking as relieved himself as Sam now felt.

"What?" asked Sam.

"Well," said Al slowly, "this is very unusual, you know. We thought you ..." He looked away, frowning.

"You thought I came back, but I'd lost my mind," Sam conjectured. Al said nothing. "Where am I?" Sam asked abruptly.

But Al only stared at him sheepishly, scratching his ear again. Finally, he said, "There's a problem."

"What kind of a problem?"

Al rolled his eyes to the ceiling and waved his ever-present cigar.

"Ziggy's developed an over-active imagination."

"What does that mean? I'm in the future; I know that. How far? Where?"

"Well, that's just it," said Al.

"What?"

"According to Ziggy, you're not in the future at all - you're in the past."

"I can't be in the past," Sam declared, waving his prosthetic hand meaningfully in front of him.

"Did that thing come with a full line of attachments?" his friend quipped, putting the cigar between his teeth and then removing it. "Ziggy says you're several million years in the past."

"Several MILLION?"

"You heard it."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Well."

Sam thought a moment, his mind racing. The project hadn't been designed to take him outside the boundaries of his own lifetime, but it had done so spectacularly at least once before, regardless. Still, a link had been found to account for it, but the distance in time had been measured in thousands, not millions of years. If Ziggy was right, it would mean that civilization had existed far longer than was believed - but it would also mean that no link of the kind they'd previously found could possibly exist. He looked up.

"Where am I, Al?" he asked. "According to Ziggy?"

"You don't want to know."

"Al."

"In another galaxy." Al looked down at some notes he held in his hand and read the Messier number.

Could it be true, Sam wondered? His mind tried to correlate the time elapsed with the distance in light years, seeing if that would somehow work out - but it didn't. And, he thought, even if it had, it would only have worked one-way. But he realized it didn't matter; not in any practical sense of solving the problem he'd been brought here to solve.

"Ziggy wouldn't be able to help anyway," he told Sam. "Either for a past that long ago and far away or for the future. There's no way to get to any records for either."

"True," his friend admitted.

"You're going to have to ask him," Sam said.

"Him?" Al asked, then realized who Sam meant. "_HIM_ him?" He scowled. "That would be a very bad idea."

"Why?" Sam asked, not liking Al's tone. Considering Anakin's condition when he'd been plopped into his body, he suspected the other man had been hysterical right after the jump, but surely he should have settled down some by now. And an explanation of what was going on (along with a request for help) should calm him too. But Al should know that. "It's not like he isn't accustomed to being around high-tech equipment," Sam added, flourishing the arm again.

"Seeing that thing takes one black mark off my weirdometer," Al told him. "But it doesn't keep the needle from being pegged. We're damned lucky he was missing that arm, or there might not have been anything left of us here."

"What are you talking about?"

"He's some kind of psychic," Al informed him. "Like a poltergeist. He throws things around with his mind; no one could get near him. He's fast, too, like he knows what's coming before it happens. If he hadn't stopped to stare at his hand - the one he's not supposed to have - we might have completely lost control of the situation. He tore up the room pretty thoroughly - we finally had to use the tranquilizing gas we installed last year. Trust me, it'll be better if he sleeps through the whole thing."

"Did he hurt anyone?" Sam asked, alarmed.

"No, no one got hurt, except maybe for a few bruises from where they fell against something when he pushed them away. But you don't want to take the chance that he will, do you?"

Sam exhaled roughly, frustrated.

"Al, I'm completely out of my depth here," he said. "Anyplace else I could at least do normal, everyday things, even if there were a few things I had to improvise. But I can't even figure out how to work the shower ... or even which fixture the shower is! I need information!"

"Well, you'll have to figure out some way to get it from there for now," Al told him. "Anyway, he can't be telling you how to do every tiny little thing or there wouldn't be any point in you and him changing places, would there?"

Sam had to admit that Al's statement had a certain logic to it, even if it didn't offer any comfort.

"I'll see what I can do," his friend said, relenting. "But don't expect much, and don't expect it very soon."


	3. Chapter 3

As Al disappeared, Sam turned back to the cabinet by the sink, unabashedly relieved to find that Anakin shaved with a good old-fashioned straight razor. Thanks to his lengthy visits to the recent past, he'd already learned quite well how to use one. No shaving cream was evident, but there was plenty of soap, and he could make do with that if he had to. But, after generously slathering his chin, he found to his dismay that he simply wasn't coordinated enough with the artificial hand to trust putting a razor to his face. There was no real feeling to the appendage, though he could move it naturally enough, but worse than that, the thin, bone-like digits were simply too narrow for him to get an adequate grip. In disgust, he rinsed the soap from his still-bristly face. No shower and no shave. Hopefully, he thought, he could manage to dress himself. 

Ten minutes later he emerged from the bathroom completely clothed, feeling marginally successful, if a bit like a character in a fantasy novel. The floor-length, hooded cape was mostly to blame for that, although the leather tabard beneath it certainly helped. It had taken him the longest to don the padded glove, with all its buckles to hold it in place over the bony prosthesis, but he'd managed it. He thought when he came home he might try once again to shave, this time with the glove on, but he didn't feel he had anymore time to spare for that now.

The robot was nowhere in sight. Sam headed along the gallery away from the bedroom, wondering how he was going to get to wherever Anakin worked, and also where that was. He hoped fervently that he wouldn't be expected to drive himself, after seeing the traffic outside; a slight mistake might prove fatal. Turning a corner he found himself on a broad veranda, open to the air and with a magnificent view overlooking the city. That was where the robot met him.

"Master Ani," it said, "I see you've decided to wear your glove under your sleeve instead of over it. It does look best there; much more natural. I take it you've gotten over your dislike of the way you said it chafed your arm?"

Sam's eyes widened, but he made no reply to the robot's comment; he'd have to change the way he wore the glove later, not only to appear more like Anakin, but to avoid being chafed himself. Instead, he asked, "How much longer until I have to leave?"

"I should think you had best hurry," the robot told him. "You overslept this morning, which was why I had to wake you."

So that was it, he thought, frustrated.. No information he could use. Nothing. Just leave, quickly, now, so he wouldn't be late. But leave for where? He tried to fight down panic, knowing there was no help for what he must do. Only ...

... only he was just talking to a robot, he realized. Maybe it wouldn't matter. At least, not if ...

"What happens if I'm late?" he asked, testing the robot's reaction.

It leaned back and stared at him as if in shock.

"Late?" it asked, managing to sound aghast, adding sincerely, "Why, Master Ani, you can't be late! If you arrive at the temple after first light, there will certainly be questions raised about where you've been all night. If they find out you were here, they could discover that you and Miss Padme are married. You would be thrown out of the order! It would be a terrible scandal - Miss Padme would very likely lose her seat in the senate! Oh, dear!" it exclaimed, as if reporters set to cover the scandal were pounding at the door, "Hurry!"

Sam gaped at the sudden onslaught of information, managing to not get caught up in the robot's panic mostly because he was trying so hard to absorb what he'd just heard: Anakin was some sort of priest - evidently expected to be celibate - but with a very pregnant secret wife who just happened to be a public figure? That might very well be enough to make him sick, Sam thought. And it might be the dilemma he'd come to fix. Or it might not. Saving someone from a scandal didn't sound serious enough, even if - or maybe especially if - they were a politician. Unless ... unless they wielded enough power to make a difference in something else if they did not lose their office. Or the reverse.

"So, I've never been late," he hypothesized to the robot.

"Oh, no, sir," it assured him.

"Not even close?"

It hesitated a moment, then admitted, "Well, there was one time you did miss the public transport. I'm sure you remember it."

"Tell me anyway," he instructed. "What did I do?"

"You had me call Artoo to come pick you up."

Someone could pick him up? That sounded promising.

"How about you call Artoo again," he instructed.

"But sir, you can still make the transport if you hurry. Calling Artoo involves quite a bit of risk."

_Not as much risk as me wandering around the city without knowing where I'm supposed to be,_ he thought. Out loud he said, "I'll accept the risk. Call Artoo anyway."

The robot moaned - Sam did not mistake it, it actually moaned - but it walked away, he hoped to make the requested call. While it was gone, he busied himself unfastening the clasps on the glove. He'd just removed it when the robot returned.

"He'll be here as soon as he can," the robot informed him. "He said there was no one in the garage bay at the moment, so it shouldn't take him too long."

"Can you help me put this on?" Sam asked as he stuck his prosthetic fingers back into the glove.

"Of course, sir," the robot replied, deftly tucking his sleeve together and snapping the clasps shut in less time than Sam would have thought possible, given how stiff-looking he appeared to be.

"Oh," Sam added, wanting to get this out of the way before Artoo arrived and he forgot, "About Miss Padme?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You won't tell her anything about our conversation here, about me asking you all these questions? I wouldn't want her to worry."

"Oh, of course not, sir," the robot assured him.

"Good," said Sam, feeling slightly more secure. "Then until Artoo gets here, I'd like to ask you some more questions that I also don't want you telling Miss Padme about."

"Very good, sir."

"Start by telling me your name; what you're called."

The robot's eyes flashed off and on twice. Sam realized it was meant to imitate blinking, and it did give quite a good semblance of surprise to its appearance, he had to admit. Whoever had programmed him had done an excellent job of giving him a personality. Unless, of course, all robots of this model acted identically, which he supposed was possible.

"Sir?" it asked, its voice rising with incredulity.

"Go on."

It hesitated another moment, then said, "I am C-3PO, human cyborg, relations."

"C-3PO?"

"Yes, sir, but ... but ... but you know that, sir. You are the maker! You created me."

Sam's eyes widened.

"I designed you?" he asked.

"No, sir, I am a standard design protocol droid," it corrected, "but you assembled and programmed me when you were nine years old as a present for your mother. Don't you remember, sir?"

Sam hesitated; the information gave him a sudden feeling of kinship with and admiration for the man whose body he inhabited. Anakin seemed more to him now than just a young man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He was also able to deduct that Anakin's mother must no longer be living if the robot now resided with his wife.

"You will not reveal any part of this conversation to Miss Padme," he reiterated.

"No, sir," it said mournfully.

"Now, is that what I usually call you - C3PO?"

"Threepio is what you usually call me, sir."

Sam nodded, and said, "Threepio, you said I was a member of an order at a temple. What order is it?"

"The Jedi Order, sir."

"And how long have I been a member?"

"Since you were nine, sir."

_Since he was a child?_ thought Sam. It sounded odd to him, but he knew it wasn't unheard of; and this wasn't his own culture, after all.

"And I'm not permitted to be married?"

"The Jedi are not permitted attachments of any kind, sir."

_An acetic group, then,_ he surmised.

"How many people know about my marriage?"

"None, sir, so far as I know."

"Not even Miss Padme's parents?"

"No, sir. You did suggest it, but she decided it would be too risky."

"What about Artoo?"

"Artoo?" the robot repeated, surprised. "Well, of course, Artoo and I know about it. We were the only witnesses at the ceremony."

_Artoo — R2, of course. Artoo was another robot!_

"How long have I been married?"

"Three years, sir," came the reply. "Since the beginning of the civil war, when you were recovering on Naboo from the loss of your arm."

_Civil war?_

"Is the war over?"

"Unfortunately not, sir."

Sam was mulling over this disturbing fact when a vehicle pulled up to the edge of the veranda and stopped there. A clear canopy popped open; no one appeared to be inside.

"He's here, sir," Threepio said unnecessarily.

With a last admonishment to Threepio to say nothing to Padme (though he didn't know why he kept repeating it; probably because the artificial intelligence seemed so lifelike, he decided), Sam climbed into the cockpit.


	4. Chapter 4

He heard music again. Not the same music he'd heard emanating from Padme, but something very much along the same line. He couldn't be sure if it was really just in his head or simply coming from far away; he was inside the temple now, so an audible source was conceivable. Not that he was very far inside the temple - at the moment, he was still in the hangar bay, though he was quickly heading for the door Artoo had bidden him use. 

He hadn't known at first whether Artoo was a separately functioning robot or simply a part of the aircraft he'd been picked up in. But Artoo had him figured out from the beginning - in fact, he wondered uneasily if Artoo hadn't figured out everything about him. The little robot had provided him - unasked! - with the floor plan to the temple, complete with a triptych of where he was supposed to go once he got there and where his own (unused) quarters were. He knew Threepio had to be behind the passage of information that Anakin appeared to have lost his memory. Initially, he'd wanted to kick himself for not being more (or maybe less?) specific about who the gold robot should not tell, but after a couple of tense moments, decided he was actually better off because of it and wished he'd had Artoo around every time he made a jump. The flight to the temple didn't last very long, and he appreciated the time spent on giving him the information, especially since it was probably the only time he'd be able to speak directly with the little cylindrical robot - it could only speak in understandable language when wired into the cockpit circuitry, and then only via text on a viewscreen (Sam was still scratching his head wondering how he was able to read it - the alphabet should have been entirely alien to him). Nevertheless, Sam would have appreciated Artoo's company for awhile longer; he was sure the robot had many surprising and convenient uses (it'd told him that Anakin had made several upgrades and modifications to it, though he'd evidently not built Artoo from scratch as he had Threepio). But it was not permitted inside the inner part of the temple - because no "droids" were allowed inside. So with a last glance back at the blue-trimmed Artoo, who whistled softly (probably to hurry him up, he thought), he entered the inner temple.

The music got louder as the door shut behind him, a harmonic blend of multiple melodies played at once, as if a chorus were singing, though he could not really identify any voices or specific instruments in it. He was standing in a vestibule that looked out over a colonnaded nave three stories high. From the directions he'd been given, he needed to proceed to the balcony, turn right, go through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. The dining hall should then be to his left. He started off, making himself go rather slowly, because he didn't want to miss something vital and get lost. Consequently, he was not the first to arrive at the dining hall, but he found it made little difference (and even helped him a bit since it allowed him to get over the shock of seeing real live aliens before anyone was paying much attention to him). He picked up a tray and was standing in the cafeteria line trying not to stare at the being with tentacles growing out of his head in front of him when Obiwan found him.

He recognized Obiwan immediately because Artoo had tutored him on this one person, showing him a hologram of the man, who was about his own (Sam's) age, with sandy hair and a full beard. His full name, with title, was Jedi Master Obiwan Kenobi, and Anakin usually called him "Master." He had been Anakin's training instructor for the first ten years he'd been at the temple and they knew each other well.

"I see you didn't waste any time getting down here," the man commented.

Sam had no idea what Anakin would usually have said, so he just smiled and helped himself to what appeared to be a pastry, which looked edible and could be eaten with his fingers, hoping it wasn't something Anakin would have avoided. Fortunately, Obiwan seemed to take no notice of his behavior. Sam breathed a little easier, thinking maybe he really would manage to adequately fake it, noting with interest that one of the melodies he'd heard intertwined now stood out more distinctly. It had what he imagined to be a masculine cast to it; he began to suspect it emanated from Anakin's master.

"We can't take too long here," Obiwan continued talking, as if he hadn't expected much in the way of a reply, "The council is anxious to hear why the chancellor summoned you to the ballet last night."

Sam stopped as if he had walked into a wall.

"What's the matter?" his master asked. "Are you all right? What did he say?"

"Um ..." said Sam, stalling for time, "Well ..."

The other man continued to stare at him curiously, though he didn't seem suspicious of his behavior. Finally, Sam said, "He really didn't say anything important." Sam had no way of knowing if he had, so it seemed safer to say this. If something important had been said, he felt sure it would get repeated sooner or later anyway, and if so, he'd deal with it at that time.

"Well, the council will still want to hear your report," Obiwan told him as they walked to a table and sat down together.

"I know," Sam agreed, then to cover for his earlier surprise, added, "I just wasn't expecting them to want a report about nothing."

"Well, you know, you are the council's eye in the chancellor's office," the other man said as he dug into his plate of eggs, "As well as being the chancellor's representative on the council." He looked up sharply before Sam had time to react to the information and added, "And I know you don't like it. Hopefully it won't be necessary for too long; if this blasted war would just end."

Sam bit into the pastry to keep from having to comment. Fortunately, it was quite tasty; if it had been bitter, he doubted he'd have been able to control his reaction. Mention of the war hadn't startled him; news of Anakin's role in it did, especially considering he evidently disliked that role. It sounded as if he were some sort of secular/religious informant. Sam wasn't sure what to make of that, but he was just about as anxious to meet the council as they were to meet with him.

It didn't take him long to get his wish. True to his word, Obiwan led him up into the council meeting tower as soon as they'd cleared their table.

The circular room had a spectacular panoramic view of the city, but Sam was not able to enjoy it. Some of the council members were not human, and some were present only by what he supposed was the futuristic equivalent of video conference, as holographic images seated in their chairs, but they all stared at him openly as he entered behind Obiwan, who crossed to seat himself in one of the chairs. Sam stood still for a moment, uncertainly, until one of them, a large dark-skinned man with a deep voice and piercing eyes, said, "Take a seat, young Skywalker." Though he hadn't known Anakin's last name, the man's meaning was clear: He was regarding Sam somberly and accompanied his command with a gesture to the only remaining chair. Sam quickly sat down, mulling over the implication - if there indeed was any - of being referred to as "young" anything, and stared around uncomfortably. He noticed that now everyone appeared to be studiously ignoring him as much as they'd stared at him before, and talked among themselves about details of the ongoing war. He found himself wondering what Anakin had done to make enemies of these people; he doubted very much they knew about his marriage, so it must be something else? The position Obiwan had referred to that he didn't like? Or had he been given that position deliberately because he'd made enemies? Sam stopped himself; he was going on an emotional impression, surely, possibly even driven by the "young Skywalker" comment. It was just as likely it meant nothing in this society, that this order had rules of which he wasn't aware, and that there was no hidden meaning to anything that had happened. But he was unable to completely shed the impression that something was gravely wrong between the council and Anakin Skywalker. There was just something about the council; about the meeting; about the chamber it was in, that made him deeply uncomfortable.

He had no more time to ponder this, however, before they turned their eyes to him once again. A diminutive alien with green skin and large, pointed ears, who was present only by hologram, and who was evidently the council's senior, said, "Tell us, will you, young Skywalker, why last night to the ballet Chancellor Palpatine summoned you? News for us he has?"

In the old alien's mouth, the words "young Skywalker" sounded less threatening, but it was clear from his tone that he expected Anakin to provide usable information. In fact, so did they all, and when Sam produced his rehearsed reply, that they had simply watched the ballet, several of the members protested that he must have missed something. But the old alien silenced them with a single rise of his three-fingered hand.

"No news there is," he said, his eyes locked with Sam's. "Accept that we must."

But Sam knew beyond a doubt, as he looked into those eyes, that the old alien knew he was lying.


	5. Chapter 5

Anakin woke with a fog in his brain. His eyelids were heavy, as were all his limbs; for a little while he considered simply returning to sleep, but there was some reason he should not ... if he could only remember what it was. The world around him felt muffled; carelessly, he supposed it had something to do with how tired and weak he was.

He forced his eyelids open to find his vision as clouded as his thoughts. He was in a blue room, lying on a bed. A woman sat beside him, her features blurred, but he could see that she was tall and bone-thin, with long, dark hair.

"Mom?" he heard himself croak faintly as his heart turned over. He felt tears slide from his eyes. "Mom?" He struggled to sit up, to touch her ...

"No," she said gently, brushing his hair away from his face with her hand. "I'm so sorry."

His face contorted, remembering the loss. Of course she wasn't his mother. She couldn't be. He tried to fight the impending tears with anger as he'd taught himself to do, but something had ripped him open inside and he couldn't. The unknown woman gathered him in her arms and held him. He clutched her and sobbed on her shoulder like a baby.

"I'm so sorry ..." she said, again and again, as she patted him on the back.

After awhile, he exhausted himself and lay back with his head on the pillow. But his vision had cleared, and, though his eyes ached from crying, he could see the woman clearly. Though older than he was, she was too young to be his mother - he supposed she might be around Obiwan's age.

"I'm Doctor Alessa," she said, introducing herself.

"Anakin Skywalker," he managed to breathe.

She nodded curtly, as if his name had confirmed something for her, then took a deep breath.

"You ... um ... tore up the room pretty thoroughly when you first arrived," she told him. "Using your mind. Can you ... will you assure me that you won't try to do that again?"

He'd fought her using the Force? His eyes swept the room beyond her - no windows, only a single door, closed, and probably locked and guarded. He couldn't immediately see any cameras, but he suspected they were there. Had the Separatists managed to capture him somehow? But why couldn't he remember? There was still too much of a fog in his brain; too much of a ...

He could no longer feel the Force.

Panic began to swell in him, but he fought it down. There had to be a reason; possibly the cloudiness still present in his thoughts was to blame. He focused hard on the woman, concentrating, and was rewarded with the tiniest hint of her Force-presence. It did work; his sense was just dimmed.

"Hello?" she asked, and he realized he'd been staring at her without speaking - without answering her question.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

She sighed.

"We didn't," she said, "It was the project. It's a long story."

She was right; it was. But he listened, becoming intrigued in spite of himself at the notion of time-travel, and how her husband had designed a machine to accomplish it. But it had not worked as expected, and always exchanged him for someone else in the time he visited.

"So he's in my place now?" he asked her, the familiar bands of panic tightening across his chest.

"Yes, but ..." she began, "It didn't work like it usually does. Usually, he just physically switches place with the other person. The people around him still see who they expect to see, but that person isn't really there - they come here until he leaves their time period."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, knowing that what he thought she'd said would never work so far as he was concerned. The Jedi would never simply see what they expected to see. Would they? The thought ached in his head.

She looked down, then back up at his face, to meet his eyes, and said, "I'm afraid that this time you've ... um ... switched bodies as well."

Before his brain could completely process what she'd said, she took his right hand in hers and showed it to him. It was whole; flesh, intact, as if it had never been injured. But it was also not his hand - hair grew on the back of it, near his wrist, and he could see brown hair on his forearm, not the near-invisible blond down that had once graced his own. He stared at it, unable to rip his eyes away.

"How ... how is that possible?" he whispered.

"We ... don't really know."

------

Al frowned at the security video, bathed in a wreath of smoke from his cigar, as he tapped out his impatience on the desk with one finger. He wished now he'd never relayed Sam's comment about waking their guest up, though in retrospect, he didn't see how he could have avoided it, short of lying blatantly to Donna's face. She'd asked him point blank how they were going to get the information that Sam needed to him. It didn't matter if Ziggy was right about the time period or not - if so, there was no possible way for her to obtain the information, and if not, she evidently wasn't working properly. So he'd told Donna what Sam had told him. And then she told him she'd thought of that herself anyway. So, here he was, watching the scene unfold, with his finger literally on the panic button.

She'd told him if there was a problem, to go ahead and gas the room again; they could drag her out once the stuff had done its work. But so far, he had to admit, the whole thing was proceeding much better than he'd expected. Oh, he still thought the guy was a fruitcake, but at least the violence with which he'd entered their world seemed to have cleared up. He'd cried all over Donna's shoulder, but then listened with more rapt attention to the description of the project than anyone they'd ever hosted before. Al had even started to hope that he might actually provide some real, usable information, until the guy suddenly noticed he wasn't in his own body. Then he'd fallen completely apart and had turned away and quit talking (though Al supposed that was better than throwing stuff around). Sure, waking up in another body had to be hell, he acknowledged, but they needed that information, dammit! He wondered how Donna could be so patient.

------

Anakin wondered who he was, really. He'd known for a long time that there must be something wrong with him, though he hadn't truly expected to completely lose all sense of reality. And if he had, how did he know it? There was no sense in applying logic; it wouldn't work - by definition, it couldn't possibly work. But it was no coincidence, surely, that this had happened right after the chancellor had told him the Sith had a way to prevent death. The Force help him, he'd actually considered finding out how - and ... and ... and using it if it really was possible. He'd do anything to save his wife. Wouldn't he? But then, why was he here now? He couldn't help her like this! What could he do? Was this his punishment - would the Force do this to him in retaliation for its Chosen One being open to the dark side - the very thing he was created to destroy? Why couldn't he be like everyone else, he wanted to know? Why did he have to be the fulfillment of a prophecy, never allowed a normal life, never ...

Wasn't that exactly what he had now, he suddenly realized, shaking? He was someone else, not Anakin Skywalker, not someone with any Force-sensitivity to amount to anything, not anyone the Jedi would ever had been interested in. Just someone ordinary. Had he done this to himself deliberately, then? Was this his way of withdrawal, of not having to face the reality of his existence, the expectations everyone had of him? Surely not. Surely, if nothing else, he couldn't face being without Padme. He couldn't stand to lose her, not to death, and so surely not to his own psychological avoidance. For the past week and a half, since he'd had the first dream, he could think of nothing else! She would still be here, surely, if he had done this to himself. Wouldn't she?

With trepidation, he began to wonder who the woman was who sat beside him on the bed - the one he'd turned his back to when he'd realized he'd simply lost his mind. He'd thought her some figment, not worth paying attention to, but suppose she was not? Could she just be Padme, reconfigured in his mind into someone else, as he'd done with himself? Not pregnant, but therefore with no overhanging threat of death by childbirth. It made a sort of sense, except ... she was too old, and, frankly, he thought, not as beautiful as his wife. Only, if this were so, why had he at first thought she was his mother? Clearly, the woman resembled neither of them, except very superficially - she had the same coloring, and his mother's build. Was she some mind-generated hybrid of the two? If so, why, he asked himself? His thoughts answered him with a whisper: _Death._ Both of them were victims of death he could foresee yet not prevent. Yet he was not seeing this woman as threatened in any way.

She was speaking, he realized; had been speaking all along, though he'd heard none of her words. Perhaps he should listen - he might gain some clue by what she said ...

"... anything that you remember happening from right before you came here," she finished.

He turned slightly to peer at her over his shoulder, his eyes still burning.

"Can you tell me?" she pleaded. "Please? His life may depend on it - and the problem he needs to solve for you."

"For me?" he whispered.

She inhaled deeply, to repeat what she'd evidently just finished saying.

"Yes, Sam solves problems people can't solve on their own," she said. "But he usually goes into the past, and Ziggy - the project computer - can find records of what the problem is. In your case, there are no records, because, according to Ziggy, you come from another planet. So the only way we can find out what he's supposed to do is from you. Do you have any idea what the problem could be, or did anything unusual happen right before you found yourself here?"

A problem? There was only one problem Anakin Skywalker could envision - the one that had plagued him since returning to Coruscant. But should he say? Suppose whatever had happened to him had nothing to do with saving his wife. Suppose he was simply raving in some hospital? Should he give their marriage away by speaking out? Was it fair for him to do that to Padme?

No, he realized - it didn't matter. Padme would die before two months had gone by if he did nothing. She was worried about the Jedi expelling him, but they'd no doubt do that anyway with the state he was in now. Best to go ahead ... best to say. Maybe it would help. Maybe ...

He inhaled raggedly.

"She's going to die," he croaked. "She'll die in childbirth, and I don't know what to do."


	6. Chapter 6

For the second time, Sam put his finger to his ear in a vain attempt to clear it. Since arriving at the senatorial rotunda, the ringing in his ears that had plagued him briefly when he'd first come to this world had returned in force. Not loud enough to really interfere with thought or be more than a minor annoyance, he nevertheless found himself upset to discover that the ringing seemed to block the ethereal music he'd heard emanating from the people he'd met. Then again, he mused, he was in a building full of politicians; maybe he was better off not hearing their 'music' after all.

He'd been obliquely instructed to come here by Obiwan, who had told him that maybe he'd better go back and shave before heading over to the chancellor's office.

"How do you know I haven't decided to grow a beard?" he'd asked, testing the reaction. The other man had only laughed.

"Right," he'd said, stroking his own well-groomed one, "After the way you complained about how much it itched when we were holed up on Granes Montes and you couldn't get to a razor? I don't think so. Although the way your beard stuck out all over the place you did look quite frightening with one, which no doubt pleased you. Rather like some wild man."

So Sam had followed Artoo's directions to Anakin's quarters, managed to locate a razor (evidently this wasn't the first time Anakin'd had to shave at the temple), found the communal bathroom (which was fortunately deserted at that hour), and painstakingly shaved his face. It took him an abnormally long time, but no one was around to notice.

After that, he'd traced his steps back to the hangar where he'd first entered the building and found Artoo, who was more than able to fly him to the rotunda. And now, following the new set of directions the little robot had given him, he was within sight of the chancellor's door.

------

"Anakin, come in!" the chancellor exclaimed. As with Obiwan, Artoo had tutored him on the chancellor, a man named Palpatine who was from the same planet as Anakin's wife, and who had mentored him almost since his arrival at the age of nine. The two were fairly close friends, according to Artoo, though this friendship was on a somewhat different level than Obiwan's, probably due to the chancellor's venerable age.

Sam entered the older man's office in time to see the chancellor switch off a monochrome red hologram of what appeared to be a technical diagram. He looked up from the console at Sam as the hologram vanished.

"So, what did they say?" he asked.

Sam's reaction must have shown on his face, for the chancellor said, "Don't tell me you forgot to pass the information on?" and then, after another silent moment, during which Sam could think of no suitable reply, "You completely forgot what I told you about Utapau, didn't you? According to our intelligence, that's where the Separatist leaders are - you must pass this on to the Jedi."

_So that was it!_ thought Sam. He had been supposed to give the Jedi the valuable information they'd expected. Only he was now at a loss - obviously, he'd been transported here after Anakin had the information, but before he'd been able to relay it. Was he, Sam, supposed to keep that information from being transmitted? If not, he was certainly going to ruin Anakin's credibility with his order - but then, maybe _that_ was what was required ... _There are too many variables! _he thought miserably. How was he ever supposed to know what to do?

"Well," the older man began smoothly, taking him by the arm paternally and walking him over to a nearby seating area, "You did have quite a bit to think about last night, after all ..."

_I did?_

"... and you do seem to be under a certain amount of stress lately, although I know as a Jedi, you're expected to be impervious to such a thing. But, you know, Anakin, as I've told you before, what the Jedi don't know about can't hurt them. Their ideals are just that – ideals. Very nice to aspire to, but completely unrealistic so far as real people are concerned. Take the Jedi on the council – do they live up to their own code? I think not, but ..." - he held up his hands, the sleeves of his robe falling back from them - "... but I'm getting away from the subject ..."

Sam's head was swimming. _Unrealistic so far as real people were concerned?_ Did Palpatine know about Anakin's marriage? He couldn't see how, if Padme's parents did not, but ...

At the thought of marriage, the chancellor looked up at Sam and smiled. It was meant to be a kindly, fatherly smile, small and sympathetic, but something about it raised the hairs on the back of Sam's neck.

"In short," he said, "I think we can work out a way so it doesn't appear to the council as if you forgot the information. As I said, I understand completely, and, in truth, it doesn't really matter. The information is still timely, provided you give it to them today. Here's what we'll do: We can say I forgot to give you the information last night, although I intended to. So they should have no reason at all for not giving you your first command." He smiled again, and patted Sam on the shoulder.

_His first command?_ thought Sam. Was that what he was supposed to prevent? Would Anakin have been killed if he'd received that command (or, conversely, caused someone else to be killed?). That was much more what Sam was used to doing. Still, there were too many unanswered questions for him to be sure. And there was something odd about the chancellor, although he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was. He needed time by himself to think.

Sam started for the door, but the older man called him back.

"Oh, Anakin," he said, "I almost forgot. A delegation of senators has an appointment with me shortly. I'd like you to be there; it would do you good to see how things stand in the senate, where their sympathies and loyalties lie, that sort of thing. Very valuable information in the long run, especially for someone who aspires to a leadership position. I'm sure you'll want to stay for it; it shouldn't take long, as these things go."

There was no hope for it; Sam was stuck waiting. For the next half hour, the chancellor spoke to him of his expectations for Anakin's future as a Jedi leader, the adamant support he had for him, and of the deplorable attitude of the current Jedi council. Sam answered in monosyllables, only when he had to, to avoid giving himself away, while his mind whirled with possibilities, the confusion mounting in him about what he should do. Strangely, Chancellor Palpatine appeared to consider his behavior entirely normal.

At last the delegation of senators arrived, and Sam was surprised to see Padme, whom Palpatine greeted as Senator Amidala, as their leader. She wore a stiff dress, something like a high-waisted hoop skirt, which admirably concealed the fact that she was pregnant – until she sat down. But, Sam thought, maybe total concealment was not her aim; possibly the style of dress was common for maternity wear in this culture.

In keeping with the secretiveness of their relationship, she ignored him completely and presented the delegation's case: They were concerned about Palpatine's recent appointment of regional governors, which he had apparently done without senatorial consent, and whether he was in fact pursuing a diplomatic solution to the war. Sam listened carefully to the exchange, and the more he heard, the more he sided with the delegation. Palpatine trivialized their concerns, seemingly secure in his own power. It became obvious to Sam that he intended to wield it and that the senators - one of whom the chancellor finally snapped at - would be expected to rubberstamp any and all decisions made by him. They may call it a republic, Sam thought with growing dismay, but in actuality it was little more than a dictatorship. Knowing nothing about the Separatists, he began to wonder if he should deliver the intelligence about them at all. Perhaps they were meant to succeed?

Anakin's wife stood and formally bade the chancellor goodbye. As she turned to leave, she gave her husband an icy glare, brief, not likely noticed by anyone except him, but definitely unmistakable in meaning:_How can you have this man as a friend and mentor?_ Sam turned the thought over in his mind, but before he had time to consider the implications, Palpatine spoke to him in a low voice:

"Their sincerity is to be commended," he said, "But I sense they're hiding something."

"What do you mean?"

"They're not to be trusted," the chancellor said flatly.

_Of course not,_ thought Sam. _No dictator ever trusts those who oppose him_. Out loud, he said, "Surely Senator Amidala can be trusted."

"Senator Amidala is hiding something," replied Palpatine. "I can see it in her eyes." He looked up at Sam. "I'm surprised your Jedi instincts didn't detect it."

Again, Sam wondered if the chancellor somehow knew about the marriage, but he suspected now that if so, he hadn't learned the information from Anakin Skywalker - or his wife.

"I simply don't sense any betrayal in Senator Amidala," he said, hedging the implied question.

"But you don't seem to want to admit it," the chancellor observed, which Sam noticed was not a reply to what he'd said at all, but rather an observation about admitting something was being hidden. A dangerous game was being played out here, and Sam was still in the dark about what was at stake. But he thought the chancellor, being a successful (if corrupt) politician, was certainly able to read faces to his advantage. Maybe he'd even seen Padme glare at him as she left. "I sense much confusion in you, Anakin," the chancellor finally finished.

Sam hardened his face, and finally excused himself from the poisonous office. He didn't realize how keyed up he was until Artoo had taken off from the rotunda to head back to the temple. _No wonder Anakin's an emotional mess,_ he thought._ I've only been here a day and it's about to give me an ulcer._ But he wasn't quite ready to go back yet, so he instructed Artoo to fly him around the city for awhile first.

_The city covers the planet. Did you wish to go into orbit?_ Artoo asked him.

"Errr, no," he replied, surprised. "Just fly around the section or whatever it is that we're in now. Not too far; don't use up an excessive amount of fuel."

Artoo veered the craft away from the temple and Sam sat back, trying to relax while he sorted the facts he knew out in his mind. Al abruptly blinked into existence, sitting on the dashboard (or rather partially inside the dashboard).

"Al!" Sam exclaimed. "Do you have anything? Did you wake him up? What did he say?"

"Ho-ho-hold on there," Al told him, holding his hands up for emphasis, his cigar firmly planted between two fingers. "Maybe, yes, and let me see." He dug his notebook out of a pocket. "His name is Anakin Skywalker."

"Yes, I figured that out already," said Sam.

Al gave him the evil eye.

"Well, maybe you should tell me what you already know so I don't waste your valuable time," he said. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to get any of this out of him? He thinks he's hallucinating in a psycho ward someplace."

"Sorry, Al," Sam said contritely. He was really letting Anakin's stress get to him. "Please go on."

Al gave him another glare, then read, "There's some woman named Padme who's preggo that he's worried about."

"His wife," Sam provided. "Their marriage is a secret. He's a priest."

Al's eyebrows shot to the ceiling.

"Maybe you do know more than I do," he admitted. "Anything in particular you want me to ask him? Can't guarantee an answer, but I'll try."

"Did he say anything about a problem he was working on, or what was specifically bothering him last night before the jump?"

"Yeah," Al said. "That's what I started to tell you about. He's convinced this Padme woman - his wife - is going to die in childbirth. It's making him crazy. I mean, he literally said it's making him crazy."

_Die in childbirth?_ Was that what Sam had come to prevent? Was he simply meant to deliver Padme's baby, while the rest of their civilization went to hell in a handbasket? The technology in their world was so startlingly advanced; he found it hard to believe that such a death could occur. Still, it was, at heart, an alien culture, and there could be gaps in their knowledge of which he was unaware. He wondered uneasily if the secrecy surrounding their marriage had caused her to spurn prenatal care.

"What makes him think she's going to die?" he asked. "Did he say?"

Al nodded.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "He's a psychic."

Sam stared at his friend, waiting for him to continue.

"He's had premonitions in several dreams now. Apparently he had similar dreams about his mother's death, too."

"That's it?" Sam was disappointed.

"That's all she wrote."

But it was true, Sam realized. Not necessarily the part about Padme dying, but he knew without knowing how that it was the reason Anakin had been so emotionally sick last night. He'd seen his wife die in a dream. Her words to him, "Did it happen again?" confirmed it. He realized it meant that she knew. Maybe he could use that to help him figure out how likely it might be.

With regret, he thought it was sad that he might not have been brought here to help unseat Palpatine, though he tried not to dwell on it. By now, he'd jumped so many times he'd gotten used to the fact that he couldn't right every wrong he saw. The people he helped still had to make their own decisions about their lives; he simply evened the scales in their favor. They'd have to overcome tyranny on their own, he thought. But he tried not to think of the converse; that he might be here to ensure the dream would come true.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam strode purposely toward the gallery which ran beside the nave. A series of meditation chambers lined the outside walls; he'd discovered this useful fact from Artoo a short time ago. He needed the time to sit and think, undisturbed, both about what he'd witnessed himself, and about what he'd learned from Al, and he didn't think he could fly around the city all day without having someone wonder why he'd used up so much fuel.

With anticipation amounting to relief, he reached the first of the doors, and reached out to open it, but brought up short when he heard the mental music emanating from within at the last moment. Without looking, he could tell the chamber was occupied; it occurred to him that, since everyone's "tune" appeared to be different, the real Anakin might even be able to tell the identity of the occupant. Hopefully, Sam wouldn't be tested on that.

He went on to the next door, and found that chamber occupied as well. The same with the next, and all the rest on that side of the nave. Crossing to the other side, he tested each of those chambers, but by the time he reached the last one, he was already expecting to be disappointed, and had begun to wonder if they needed to be reserved, or if this was the order's meditation hour.

"All full, are they?" a voice said nearly in his ear. He jumped slightly and looked up to see Obiwan regarding him curiously.

"Apparently so," he agreed.

The other man stared at him a moment longer and then said, "Are you feeling all right?"

Sam wondered how much Obiwan knew about Anakin's problems - not much, he surmised. Was he just extraordinarily sensitive, then, or had Sam done something to make him suspicious?

"I'm fine," he replied. "Why?"

Obiwan shook his head.

"You've just seemed ... well, preoccupied, recently," he said. "And I used to have the worst time trying to get you to do your meditation. I'd have thought this would have been the last place you'd come now that you're on your own."

_Oops,_ thought Sam.

"But I can't believe that, now that you're actually willing to meditate, none of the rooms are available," Obiwan exclaimed.

"I guess I'm just not meant to, then," Sam said, trying to salvage Anakin's character as much as he could, adding truthfully, "I really just wanted someplace quiet to sit and think."

The other man stared at him obliquely.

"What?" Sam finally asked.

"It's what you just said, about it being the will of the Force that none of the rooms were open," Obiwan mused. "I was upstairs in the meditation garden and suddenly thought I should be down here."

Sam digested what the other man had said; it was honestly the first time since he'd been here that anyone had mentioned anything even slightly religious in his hearing, which, now that he thought about it, seemed odd, considering he was a member of a religious order and was standing in their temple.

"Are you certain you'd rather sit and think alone?" Obiwan asked. "Or would you like someone to talk to?"

"Well," Sam began, when abruptly the door nearest them swished open and the occupant, an alien with blue skin and horns, quietly exited, walking away from the two men. Sam ripped his attention away from the alien, stared for a moment at the open door, and then glanced up at Obiwan, who smiled at him wryly. "Maybe I do need someone to talk to," he said.

------

"What's on your mind, then?" Obiwan asked, after they had both seated themselves on the hassocks in the chamber.

But now that he had the other man's attention, Sam was having second thoughts. He'd planned to carefully consider everything he'd learned, laying each problem out individually and seeing what was involved and how they might possibly relate to each other. Only he didn't feel comfortable suddenly revealing Anakin's secret life to someone else, even (or maybe especially) Anakin's old instructor. Even if such a revelation would somehow manage not to affect Padme, he felt it would take undue attention away from everything else he wanted to consider.

Yet Sam was, by now, a definite believer in God, Providence, _the Force_, whatever you wanted to call it. He had been exchanged for Anakin for a reason, and it was fairly clear that Obiwan had been sent here, to this spot, to meet him for a reason as well.

"Did something happen at the chancellor's office?" the other man finally prompted when Sam's silence had gone on too long. "I notice you're back earlier than usual."

_Should I tell him the Separatist leaders are on Utapau? _Sam wondered._ What if they're not supposed to hear that? What do I do?_ He glanced uneasily at his companion, and then away. Obiwan waited, in patient silence. Finally, Sam said, "A ... delegation of senators came to the chancellor's office while I was there." He went on to tell Obiwan the purpose of their visit and Palpatine's response, both to their faces and after they had gone (though he kept to himself the specific accusation against Padme hiding something). The longer he talked, the more grave the other man's expression grew, and when he finished, Obiwan looked away, his expression pinched. Sam sat quietly, waiting for him to speak, curious to know what he would say.

At length, he said, "You already know how I feel about the chancellor, Anakin," which didn't help Sam at all, until he added, "I know he is your friend and mentor. But ... well ... I know you respect Senator Amidala's opinion. What do _you_ think now? Are you still convinced the chancellor is doing the right thing?"

_Anakin was blind to the chancellor's menace! _Of course, Sam thought. They'd been close since he was nine – the same age he'd been when he'd come to the temple! Almost as if ... as if the chancellor had deliberately cultivated him for use as an inside agent. The implication made the hair on the back of his neck prickle; if true, it meant the chancellor had the patience of a spider, waiting all this time for a child to grow up ...

Sam shook his head. Surely not, he thought. He was letting his imagination run away with him. Looking up, he saw Obiwan still regarding him patiently.

"No," he said, then trying to sound more like Anakin, amended it to, "I don't know." After a moment, he added truthfully, "I don't know what to do."

"Tell the council," Anakin's old master said immediately.

But Sam balked, visualizing that throng of stony faces staring at him accusingly, the atmosphere of the council chamber heavy and dissonant. No, he thought, I can't do that to Anakin. He understood now the animosity they all had for him – Anakin was, whether innocently or not, the chancellor's agent in the temple. But reporting that the chancellor was, in fact, exactly like they already knew he was would accomplish nothing except to belittle his host. The Force ...

"The Force wanted me to tell you, not the council," he said. "It sent you down here, not me up to the council chamber."

He thought for a moment that the other man was just going to repeat, "So I could tell you to tell the council," and maybe he nearly had. But instead, Obiwan said quietly, "What does the Force want you to do now?"

What did it want? Sam thought again how curious that it hadn't been mentioned that morning.

"What is the purpose of the Jedi Order?" he asked suddenly. He thought he could get away with making the question seem rhetorical, and he was right. The other man glanced at him with only brief consternation before accepting it as such and nodding.

"To maintain peace and justice in the republic," Obiwan replied dutifully.

Sam raised an eyebrow. That was it? No dogma? Nothing about worship of the Force?

"You don't agree with that?" the other man asked him, evidently sensing his confusion. His tone, however, was mild, and curious.

"What about the Force?" Sam blurted, wishing he could suck the words back the instant they'd passed his lips. But Obiwan gave what he'd said careful consideration.

"You're right," he admitted, acknowledging his mistake. "A Jedi's first duty is to follow the will of the Force. That isn't listed in the official mandate of the order, though it should have been. What are you trying to get at?"

Sam thought about the council, the chancellor, and the now-nonexistent republic. Had the Jedi mandate expired (or had they failed miserably at it)? Were they, like Anakin, fighting on the wrong side of the battle? Should their mandate have put them on the other side?

"What is the greatest threat the Jedi face?" he asked.

"Ah," Obiwan said. "Yes, the Sith Lord. That would concern you. But what does that have to do with your not telling the council?"

Sam was stumped. A 'Sith Lord' that concerned Anakin? What was it, even? A threat, yes, and by the title, presumably an individual. But he could think of no satisfactory way to find out, or even extricate himself from the conversation at this point. Why had he allowed Obiwan to come into the meditation chamber with him? 'Will of the Force' well and good, but ... but ... but if left only to himself, would he have found out about the Sith Lord? Maybe Anakin would have said something in time ... or maybe he wouldn't have. And maybe it had nothing to do with Sam's mission, anyway. Only ... the fortuitousness of his meeting with Obiwan, acknowledging the will of the Force in their meeting, this sudden mention of something he hadn't yet heard about; something that was evidently the Jedis' greatest threat ... Maybe, just maybe, the Sith Lord was directly involved in his mission. Which would mean, of course, that Padme's giving birth had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Didn't it?

"Anakin," the other man said hesitantly, "Are you sure you're all right?"

Sam didn't reply; still didn't know what to reply, beyond 'yes,' and then where would he be? Still expected to hold an intelligent discussion about something - someone - he knew nothing about. It wasn't as if he could continue trying to sound rhetorical: _And what, exactly, is a Sith Lord?_

"Did the chancellor say anything else?" Obiwan tried, but even with the change of subject, Sam was still at a loss. He had no idea whether to transmit the information about the Separatists or not, and didn't want to lie to someone Anakin considered a friend. "Did he give you some clue as to the Sith Lord's identity?"

His identity was unknown? Maybe Sam could play this right ... maybe.

"Master," he began, just to test the other man's reaction, more than anything, "Suppose the chancellor is the Sith Lord?" He was probably being unfair, but in his opinion they were both threats to the republic, so the probable false accusation didn't bother him.

Obiwan's eyes widened.

"The chancellor?" he asked incredulously. Then he stopped. "You're serious, aren't you?" he said. "Do you have any evidence of this?"

Sam said nothing; of course there was no evidence. The chancellor hadn't had a placard on his desk that said 'Sith Lord' and Sam wouldn't have recognized one if it knocked him down. He just hoped he wasn't backing himself further into a corner by pursuing the topic this way.

"It upset you to find out what he was really like, didn't it?" said Anakin's master kindly. "I suppose that was to be expected; you have been friends with him for a long time. And I'm sure he wasn't always like he is now. But as much as I deplore what he's doing, it doesn't make him the Sith Lord. Unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?"

The other man smiled ruefully. "Well," he said, "If he was, it would certainly simplify everything. Then the Jedi could at least legitimately remove him."

Sam realized from the comment that he could finally extricate himself from meeting with the council.

"That's why it's pointless of me to report what happened to them," he said sensibly. "It isn't as if they could do anything about it."

"I still think they should hear about it."

"Then feel free to tell them," said Sam. "I just would rather not, myself, for now."

"Oh, all right," Obiwan said, capitulating. "But can you at least see the value of keeping an eye on him for the council now? You'll still have to appear to be his eye on the council as well, but maybe you won't feel so torn in your loyalties."

Sam nodded.

"Good," the other man continued. "You know I'll be here if you need me." He smiled kindly before rising and passing through the door.

Sam was at last alone in the chamber with his thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

Anakin stared down at the large piece of paper he had spread out on the bed, trying to keep his incredulity at bay. He'd asked Dr. Alessa if he could see the plans for the time-travel project, although he hadn't really expected this would be allowed. Instead, he'd suspected that his mind would conjure up reasons for him to not see them, because, of course, he had no idea how to build such a thing, so his own mind couldn't possibly provide any plans. And, at first, she had refused, as he'd expected. He'd kept asking, though, and finally told her why he knew she'd never let him see them. Oddly enough, the next time she'd come back carrying them - printed on large sheets of wood pulp, of all things! He'd wondered why his mind would conjure up something so antiquated, but he was more curious to know what was printed on the paper. It should be nonsense, or at least something he knew how to build, and not a time machine. But after several hours of reading - and re-reading - the plans, he had to admit it could work.

He traced a series of circuits and junctions with his finger; there was where someone would be sent into another time, and, of course, there was also where an exchange would be made. But it should be a physical exchange, he noticed. That is, if Dr. Beckett had been exchanged for him, then he, Anakin, should be here still inside his own body - not Dr. Beckett's. And, no matter how closely he examined it, looking for the cause of the malfunction, he couldn't find any. There was nothing to explain why he and Dr. Beckett had only switched consciousness, and nothing to explain the project's larger problem: Why the project crew had no control over where Dr. Beckett was sent. It seemed quite clear to Anakin that the project should work as designed.

Yet, stuck as he was as part of a malfunction that shouldn't exist (for he was beginning to believe he might not be crazy after all), he was absolutely fascinated with the plans. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought it could be possible to build a time machine and he'd begun to wonder if it might somehow be possible to take the plans back with him. Dr. Alessa's description of what her husband did made Anakin wonder what he might be able to do ... could he, for instance, make it to his mother's rescue in time to save her? Could he change the bad decision he'd made which let Count Dooku escape the first time (and cost him his hand)? Or, could he change the outcome of that first battle of the war entirely, knowing what he knew now? Think how many of the Jedi had died on Genosis; could he save them? Could he prevent the war altogether? Could he prevent Padme from dying in childbirth? He thought it might be possible to wait and see the exact cause of her death and the circumstances surrounding it; after that he might be able to go back and prevent it. But even if not that, he could certainly go back and ... and make sure he did not get her pregnant. He swallowed, knowing he'd wished that often enough in the past week since he'd had the first dream. It was this knowledge that now, more than anything, still kept some doubt about his sanity alive in his mind. It was possible, he thought, that he only imagined the plans spread out in front of him would work. He could have come here just to give himself false hope.

But he sighed resolutely and forced himself to think about why this had happened if it really was true. Yes, he might be totally crazy, but if not, he wouldn't get anywhere by laying down and giving up hope. For a moment, he wished Obiwan was there; his former master would have been able to easily figure out what was going on. But the moment passed as the old jealousy flared up. Why always Obiwan, he wondered? Why did he always have to be such a model of perfection? It seemed most of the time his old master only existed to show him (by example; Anakin knew Obiwan was too perfect to ever say so out loud) how inferior he, Anakin, was. How unworthy of being a Jedi. How defective. All the times he'd rescued his master, Anakin had never had to think his way through it, at least, not unless the thought involved technology. In that respect he _was_ better, but that wasn't anything a Jedi had to excel at. Mostly Anakin just worked by the seat of his pants and pretended it was the Force telling him what to do. Sometimes he'd even believed it, though his doubt would creep in when it was quiet. When he was sleeping.

But now he didn't have the Force. Obiwan wasn't here. He'd have to figure it out on his own. Maybe this was his chance to prove himself? But how to go about it? He glanced at the drawings, and an idea came to him: If he was programming, he would start with a flow chart. Could he start with one here?

He took the stick of paper-covered colored wax he'd been given ("Admiral Calavicci doesn't want me to give you anything sharp," she'd told him apologetically), and began to write on the back of the project plans.

_Problem,_ he wrote, mildly surprised to see himself writing in aurabesh. The plans had been written in their alphabet and he'd had no trouble at all reading them, and understood that he could write their letters, too, if he wished. Nevertheless, started to continue in aurabesh, when he realized he had no clear idea what the problem even was. Was it that their project did not work as designed? No, that was not his problem. His problem would be ... getting selected by the project for exchange with Dr. Beckett (that was the initial problem; having the transference go wrong was something else, because it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been selected). According to Dr. Alessa, such a selectee was chosen by the project - as built - because he was about to make a mistake that would adversely affect someone's life. Had he been about to make one? Guiltily he thought about what the chancellor had told him at the ballet - about the Sith being able to prevent death. Palpatine had hinted that the Jedi knew, but weren't telling. But once he'd led the assault against General Grievous and the war was over, surely he would be made a full master and given unrestricted access to the files. Would he find out how to save her there? If he did, whose life would be adversely affected? Not hers, not unless the real purpose was to ensure she died, as Master Yoda had implied she should. Was that why ...

His eyes burned and an invisible weight crushed his chest; suddenly he couldn't breathe. _No,_ he thought. _No. Stop it; think it through!_ Dr. Alessa said he improved people's lives. He's there to help; he has to be. She said he was a medical doctor; maybe he's just going to deliver the baby. _But why would he be there two months in advance? That can't be it!_

He took a deep breath. _Okay,_he thought. _If it doesn't affect her, who will it affect?_ Almost immediately, Obiwan's disapproving face popped into Anakin's head.

_It's a Sith technique,_ the image told him bluntly in his master's voice. _Don't you think you might, just might, be adversely affected by that?_

Anakin seethed at the sarcasm, but forced himself to acknowledge that he was the one who'd really said it. After all, Obiwan was not here, and the Force wasn't working for him at the present. He had to be honest; it wasn't as if he hadn't secretly thought it was wrong since he'd first heard about it. And whether that was what Dr. Beckett had come to prevent him doing or not, his mind was so filled with guilt about it that he almost had to write the whole thing out just to get it out of his way so he could think. He noticed he tried to talk himself out of it even then – after all, he wasn't likely to find out anything about the Sith until he came back from Utapau, so why would Dr. Beckett have come already? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to wait until after Anakin had killed General Grievous? Especially since Dr. Beckett would hardly be able to do that himself?

It was then Anakin realized that the council had never been told about the intelligence report. Is that it, then? he asked, but, after twenty more minutes of trying to reason out why the council's knowing Grievous's whereabouts would adversely affect someone's life (well, besides Grievous'), he gave up and went back to his decision to consider a Sith method, if for no other reason than to convince himself once and for all that it was not the reason.

_Problem: I consider a Sith technique to save Padme._ He'd no sooner written the sentence than he realized it didn't belong in the problem category at all, but was, rather, a decision block, so he changed that, and then put down the possible choices, finally feeling as if he were getting somewhere.

_Choice 1: I use the Sith technique._

_Choice 2: Dr. Beckett keeps me from using the Sith technique._

He put arrows going away in opposite directions, one for each choice, then sat back and thought a moment. It was tempting to put down Padme dying as being the consequence of not using it, but with Dr. Beckett's name on it, he had to look as hard as he could for a positive outcome to that choice. If he could find one, that would certainly be the solution, and support this as the reason for their switch. But first, he needed a negative condition that would happen as a result of Choice 1.

_I suppose that's easy enough,_ he thought. _I guess it's supposed to turn me to the dark side. _He wrote that down, although in truth, he didn't wholly believe it. He'd done things in the past that the Jedi had claimed would turn one to the dark side and they hadn't. And some of them had less justification that the use to which he would put this knowledge. Not that he felt good for doing them, and of course, he could never tell Obiwan. He knew he was not a good Jedi, but he was hardly overcome by the dark side. Still, for the sake of argument, he wrote it down.

Once he had that, he looked at Choice 2, but was unable to think of anything other than "I don't turn to the dark side" as a consequence, though he could not get the words "and Padme dies" out of his mind in association with it. So he wrote them down (more to shut up his mind than anything else), and, to be complete, wrote "and Padme lives" after the other, so that he had:

_Choice 1: I use the Sith technique, turn to the dark side, and Padme lives_

_Choice 2: Dr. Beckett keeps me from using the Sith technique, I don't turn to the dark side, and Padme dies_.

He felt his heart pounding as he read the words back to himself, his breathing stentorian.

Am I really willing to turn to the dark side to save Padme? he asked himself. But as soon as the words were formed, he knew the answer was yes. He was. Even though he knew she'd never have him once he did, at least she'd be alive. At least he would have accomplished that much, even if it took his soul to do it.

Which meant that, if Dr. Alessa was telling the truth, Dr. Beckett hadn't come to keep him from using the Sith method of keeping her alive. Unless ...

The thought that entered Anakin's mind then was so horrible he almost couldn't imagine it. But he forced himself to write it down anyway; it only took crossing out two words, to switch them around:

_Choice 1: I use the Sith technique, turn to the dark side, and Padme dies_

_Choice 2: Dr. Beckett keeps me from using the Sith technique, I don't turn to the dark side, and Padme lives._

The only thing that kept him from an uncontrollable fit of shaking was the ludicrousness of Choice 2. It seemed to say that if he did nothing, Padme would not die, but Anakin knew better. She couldn't have been dying in his dream because he'd used a Sith method to keep her alive, since he'd never heard of such a thing before he'd had the first dream. Yes, the chancellor would no doubt have mentioned it anyway, but Anakin knew he'd have paid scant attention if he hadn't been so desperate to find something to keep her alive at the time. It was a circular argument and therefore couldn't be true. But it didn't rule out the possibility that she might die either way. Suppose he turned to the dark side, and she died regardless. Was he willing to sacrifice his soul even if it might be for nothing? It didn't take him long to decide: Yes. He'd do it regardless. He had to try; he'd never be able to forgive himself otherwise, if it had any chance whatsoever of working. But suppose the choice was taken out of his hands, as it was now? If it was doomed to not save her, wasn't he better off? He would die of grief, but still have his soul. Maybe this was what Dr. Beckett had come to ensure.

Except the problem still persisted: Why so soon? Why before he'd fought Grievous?

The idea that Grievous might kill him had surfaced earlier, but he'd rejected it out of hand. If Padme were going to die anyway, Anakin would wish he were dead, so what would be the difference? He didn't want to be kept alive when she was not. Nor could Dr. Beckett, who had no experience in dueling with a lightsaber, be a better choice than himself for the mission. If he were honest (and the project crew were honest as well), he'd have to conclude that, for some reason, the Jedi were not supposed to find out where Grievous was.

He'd just started wondering what this might mean when the man Dr. Alessa referred to as Admiral Calavicci burst in the door without preamble.

"I need to know," he said breathlessly, as if he'd run a long way, "and I need to know now: What, exactly, is a Sith Lord?"


	9. Chapter 9

Sam sat in Padme's apartment, in a room just off the bedroom, his eye suddenly caught by a glimmer of silvery metal sticking up from between the seat cushion and the arm of the sofa. He reached over and pulled on it, extracting a small electronic pad of some sort, with two handles and a blank screen. Apparently people had been losing things in sofa cushions for as long as sofas had existed. He wondered what he was holding - a game of some sort? That's what it would have been at home. Here, he wasn't sure. For all he knew it was the equivalent of a newspaper. Idly, he turned it around in his hands as he thought about what Al had told him.

A Sith Lord was apparently the antithesis of a Jedi Master. The Evil to their Good. There was more to it than that; technical stuff which Al had dutifully recorded from Anakin's account, having to do with their history and reappearance, including the fact that they always worked in twos, a master and an apprentice, and that Anakin had just killed the Sith Lord's apprentice, Count Dooku, a week ago. He thought there was probably only one Sith at the moment, since it seemed unlikely he'd been able to train a new one so quickly. The last Sith apprentice had been killed when Anakin was a child, by Obiwan, no less. That, put together with the fact that the most recent Sith apprentice had been a fallen Jedi, meant the Count wouldn't have required extensive training, as someone new to using the Force would have needed. Unfortunately, no one knew the Sith Lord's identity or location. By this time, however, they knew he was a master at using the Force.

From the reticent Anakin, this was an absolute fountain of information. Al hadn't been able to explain why; he hadn't wanted to interrupt the flow and chance their guest's renewed silence. And it wasn't all he'd said on the subject; there was quite a bit more: Apparently, there was a prophecy that said that every thousand years or so when the Sith gained strength (or, more accurately, when the Force became unbalanced), a Chosen One would be born to set things right (balance the Force) again. This Chosen One would be known by certain aspects of his birth and by his strength in the Force. Anakin hadn't said exactly what aspects he was born under (leaving Sam to imagine there must be something special about his horoscope), but it didn't make any difference. All Sam had to know was that Anakin was considered by the Jedi to be their Chosen One.

So, essentially Sam now knew why Obiwan had said that the Sith Lord would concern Anakin, but did it really matter? Anakin had also said that he didn't think Sam was there to face the Sith Lord on his behalf, since he was untrained in both the use of the Force and in their fighting techniques. Sam had to agree. And that wasn't all they agreed about.

Anakin was convinced that Sam must be there to alter something fairly immediate. All he could think of was the intelligence report he was supposed to have delivered to the Jedi Council. He didn't know why it shouldn't be delivered, but it was something he'd been going to do the next morning (and he provided the contents of the report in case Sam hadn't yet heard it). In this respect, he and Sam were absolutely on the same wavelength. But then Al had looked up from the account he was reading, and stared at Sam hard.

"He's a non-voting member of the Jedi Council, an appointment he got through political pull," he said grimly. "And he's very bitter about their lack of support. He doesn't trust them, and doesn't believe they trust him, either."

"Are you saying he thinks the report shouldn't be delivered because of corruption within the Jedi order?"

"No," Al said. "He didn't say that. And I'm sure he would have said so if that's what he thought." He glared at Sam. "What I'm trying to get to is that, for some reason, he thinks they're going to give him command of the mission to take out the enemy general. And I'm telling you there isn't a snowball's chance in hell they'll do that. Even if he was popular, it'd be unlikely; they've got him planted in the chancellor's office - why would they want to give that up? And political pull doesn't make you popular."

"What made him think he'd get it?"

"I didn't ask. Didn't want him to clam up."

"Well, if he didn't clam up, what else did he say?"

Al had grimaced and pursed his lips, then looked back down at his notepad and turned the page.

"He wanted me to tell you this is only for completeness' sake; he doesn't think this has anything to do with why you're there."

"That sounds promising."

Al glanced up at him and smirked, then read, "The report wasn't the only thing the chancellor told him."

Sam suddenly became extremely interested.

"Apparently," Al continued, "he told Anakin that the Jedi knew of some way to keep people from dying using the Force, but were unwilling to employ it, or to even divulge how it was done. Something about them not wanting to interfere with nature."

"The chancellor told him that?"

"That's what he said. Plus the fact that, since he isn't a full master in the order, he doesn't have unrestricted access to their records so can't go look it up on his own. He said he planned to do it as soon as he was made a full master - he expects they may make him one once he returns from a successful mission on Oota-p ..."

"Utapau."

"Yeah, that. But I'm telling you there's no way he's going."

"Well, especially if the report never gets delivered. Has he thought that far ahead yet?"

"Not that I could tell," said Al. "But probably not. He's not the brightest bulb in the galaxy."

"He seems pretty damned smart to me," Sam had argued, realizing suddenly why Anakin had agreed to help them. Sam knew he'd seen the technical drawings for the project; he'd understood how it worked, and that had convinced him of the reality of the situation.

"Well," Al had admitted, "Maybe he's pretty smart in book-learning. But he's so wrapped up in worrying about his wife that he can't see straight. I'd say it's amazing he could think at all. You know, he told me that if you were there to do anything for him personally, the only thing he cared about was her. He actually said, and I kid you not, that he'd give his soul to save her if he had to, so that anything you had to decide for him that didn't include her survival, he wasn't interested in."

Those words echoed in Sam's mind as he tapped his fingers on the pad in agitation, waiting for Padme to come home. The quiet of the well-insulated apartment pressed in upon him; Threepio was as far away as he could get, off in the kitchen, presumably making them dinner. A residual snatch of Force-music (as he now thought of it) came to him - it was familiar, somehow, and masculine. He thought he might almost be able to identify it, when he suddenly heard, superimposed over it, the light chime of Anakin's wife. As he listened, he heard the elevator arrive on their floor, and the door opened. He looked up, expecting to face her wrath, but she merely smiled benignly at him as she began folding up the large shawl she'd worn to go out.

"Obiwan's been here, hasn't he?" he asked, the owner of the residual music suddenly occurring to him.

"He came by this morning," she said as she walked past him and into the bedroom. "He's worried about you. He said you'd been under a lot of stress."

He tossed the pad aside and followed her, watching while she put the shawl away in a blanket chest. What would it feel like, he wondered, to love someone so much you were willing to give your soul for them? Pain from a memory he'd buried in his past lanced him momentarily, but he shied away before it had time to take shape.

"I feel lost," he nearly whispered.

She turned around.

"Lost?" she asked.

He swallowed, shaking his head. He was here to solve Anakin's problem. Best to focus on that and stop daydreaming.

"Obiwan and the council don't trust me," he told her.

"They trust you with their lives," she said sensibly.

He supposed they did, so far as being in battle went, but that wasn't really what he'd meant.

"I found a way to save you," he said, testing her reaction to the subject.

"Save me?"

"From my dreams."

"Is that still bothering you?"

She stared up into his face, then put her arms around him to hold him as she had the night before, when she'd found him sick in the bathroom.

"The Jedi have a way to prevent death," he told her, "But they don't allow anyone to learn it because they don't believe in interfering with nature."

She pulled back and stared at him incredulously.

"Where did you hear about this?"

"The chancellor told me."

Her eyes widened, and he saw her frown. For a moment, he thought she was going to get mad at him for his non-reaction to the chancellor's power play earlier in the day, but all she said was, "How would he know what the Jedi do and don't know?"

He shrugged, though he'd wondered the same thing.

"I don't know," he admitted. "He's been around a long time; I'd imagine he's probably picked up a lot of information he might find useful later."

Padme had let go of him and was staring thoughtfully out the window.

"Anakin, did you tell the chancellor about our marriage and the dreams you've been having?"

"No," said Sam, as truthfully as possible. He'd wondered the same thing, but Anakin had assured Al that he hadn't told a soul.

"Then why would he suddenly mention that to you?"

"I don't know," he said, disturbed that she'd come to the same conclusion he had earlier. "But I'm beginning to think he must know about us. That wasn't the only thing he said." Briefly, he filled her in on what had happened after she'd left Palpatine's office. When he got to the part where the chancellor'd said she was hiding something, her face turned white.

"You're right," she whispered. "He knows."

"He didn't come out and say so," he added hopefully.

"He will, just give him time," she said, and he heard an undercurrent of venom in her voice. She looked up at him. "Anakin, I know he's your friend, but I just don't trust him anymore. I'm sure he only said that to get some hold over you."

"You think he made the whole thing up, then?" he asked. "But even if he does know about our marriage, how would he have known about my dream? It doesn't make any sense."

"I meant the part about me hiding something - I'm sure he knows I'm pregnant; it's practically impossible to keep that a secret by now," she said. "But have the Jedi confirmed that the method he was talking about exists?"

"I haven't asked," he said. "I didn't want them to find out about us. All I did was talk to Master Yoda and tell him I'd had dreams about someone close to me dying. And he said ... he said I just had to let go of my attachment to them." Privately Sam concurred with Anakin that it had been an easy enough thing to say, but a far more difficult thing to put into practice. Not to mention lacking in understanding. No wonder the Jedi were such a remote bunch, he thought.

Her brow furrowed.

"That doesn't make any sense," she said. "It sounded like he was just trying to help you cope with your grief if and when it happened. Because they couldn't have an objection to interfering in death. They're heavily involved in the civil war, and they certainly interfered three years ago when someone was trying to assassinate me." She looked up at him, her eyes soft, and added, "We wouldn't be married now if they hadn't."

He started to reply with something about their maybe drawing a distinction between a natural death and an unnatural one, but stopped. Someone had once tried to assassinate her? Why? Obviously, he couldn't ask, as he was supposed to already know. But what was to keep it from happening again, even if they'd caught the original assailant? He thought again about Anakin's dreams and how much he didn't really know about them. Surrounded by this much technology, a death by childbirth was only remotely likely. But what if she was dying of some other cause, and the baby was delivered by emergency C-section to keep it from dying with the mother? He needed the exact content of the dreams, he realized, and the only person who could provide that, along with the proper context, was Anakin. He'd have to talk directly to his host, with no go-between.


	10. Chapter 10

"I want you to know," Admiral Calavicci repeated for the umpteenth time, "I don't like this one little bit." He snapped the words off, face stern, an accusing look in his eye, trying to intimidate. On anyone else, it might have worked, Anakin thought. Anyone who'd never had to stare down Master Windu, at least. But strangely, although the admiral had been hostile to him from the start, Anakin didn't resent it at all. In fact, he thought he understood why he acted the way he did - he cared about his friends, about the people who worked on the project with him. Especially Dr. Beckett. Anakin respected that. In fact, he did a bit more than respect it - he saw a bit of himself in the admiral's actions - the part of him that cared about his friend Obiwan; the part that would suffer no fools who might endanger lives. So he said nothing, and simply followed the admiral down the corridor from where he was tuned to whatever frequency (he couldn't think of a better way to put it) was needed so Dr. Beckett could see and talk to him.

It had been done to Dr. Beckett once before, someone they'd called Gooshie had told him, only they thought it might be best to re-do it since someone else was now in control of the doctor's body. So now it was done - again - and he was ready to talk to his counterpart first hand. That was the part the admiral didn't like. Anakin wondered if the man thought he'd start raving when he saw someone else operating his body. Maybe he does think so, he decided, remembering what they'd said he'd been like when he'd first arrived. He didn't really think he would, but acknowledged that it would be a bit strange to see himself from the outside.

"Okay," the admiral said, pulling up in front of a door locked with a security touchpad. "This is it. But before you go in there, some ground rules." He paused to make sure Anakin was listening. "Rule one: I'm going to be watching you every second, so don't try anything funny. The minute I get the slightest hint that something's not kosher, I hit the kill switch. Connection broken. Got that?"

Anakin nodded. He'd expected as much, though he wasn't sure exactly what he'd be able to do as just a hologram that no one could see or hear but Dr. Beckett.

"Good," Admiral Calavicci continued. "Rule two: Because the transfer process is what it is, Doctor Beckett doesn't have complete recall of the project, which is what makes it so difficult to troubleshoot, for one thing. He's aware of this part of the problem. What he's not aware of most of the time is Doctor Alessa. He doesn't always know she's here; he doesn't always know he's married. And it's not YOUR job to tell him or give him any clues about it, either accidentally or on purpose. You are here to answer his questions ONLY. Is that clear?"

Anakin blinked. "He doesn't remember ..."

The admiral's forefinger thrust before his nose.

"No questions," he barked. "You heard what I said the first time. Now you just do what I told you - do not bring her up - and everything will be peachy freakin' keen."

Anakin clamped his mouth shut and nodded, but his mind whirled with incredulity. How could he not know he was married? Or, wait, the admiral said he only forgot sometimes. Did that mean Anakin was doomed to forget Padme if he stayed here too long? No, he didn't think he could ever forget her - in fact he knew he couldn't. Didn't Dr. Beckett love Dr. Alessa, then? She certainly loved him - Anakin remembered the way she'd talked about him, and though she'd never said so, it was obvious that she missed him terribly and wished he'd come back. He knew she felt terrible for being a part of the reason her husband was lost in time - he'd thought she must be frantic to find the mistake in the way the project was built; certainly, if Padme were lost the way Dr. Beckett was, Anakin would move the galaxy to get her back.

But he had no more time to consider Dr. Alessa's problem. Admiral Calavicci had keyed in the code, the door opened, and he was thrust into the imaging chamber. It was time to help solve his own.

------

The soft glow of greyish light suffused the otherwise pitch-dark chamber. He recognized the light/dark striping of light falling through slatted blinds and realized Dr. Beckett was waiting for him in one of the temple's meditation chambers. The light grew stronger and the image came fully into focus; he saw the pattern of light falling on his Jedi robes, worn on his own body, now under the control of someone else. Anakin had come to help, but now that he was here, he wondered why. Helplessness overcame him; it was worse, even, than being forever held up to the standard of Obiwan and found wanting. The project would not have selected him if he had not been about to make some mistake from which he'd never recover. One he'd never be able to hide. He'd been judged in advance by the Force itself as unfit to make his own decisions. How much more of a failure could he be?

"Anakin?" Dr. Beckett asked him tentatively in his voice.

Anakin nodded and swallowed hard, trying to bring his focus back to the present.

"I'm Sam Beckett," the other man said, glancing surreptitiously at something to his left. Anakin imagined someone might have brushed by the door.

Anakin started to speak, failed, then cleared his throat and tried again: "Why did you want to see me?" he asked.

"I thought it would be more efficient to talk to you in person," came the answer. "From what I've heard, it seems you and I are in agreement about most of what's going on. For instance, I think we're both convinced that whatever the reason for the switch, it must be something fairly immediate. Am I right?"

Anakin nodded tentatively.

"Would you be willing to agree then, that whatever the reason is, it must be something on which we do _not_ agree?"

Anakin's heart lurched. No, he thought, the nebulous fear of Padme slipping away from him rising up in his thoughts, overpowering all else. No, he could not agree - suppose Dr. Beckett told him she must be sacrificed. How could he stand that? The darkness of the room closed in around him ...

Dr. Beckett was holding up his hand.

"Hold on a minute," he said. "Believe me, I'm in complete agreement with you about keeping your wife alive."

Anakin put his hands to his head, rubbing his temples, nodding as he tried to catch his breath. Yes, from all that he'd heard, Dr. Beckett tried to improve the lives of the people he helped; of course he would save Padme if he could. Anakin had to hold on to that thought.

"Okay," Dr. Beckett went on, "With that in mind, there are some things I need to ask you about. To begin with, I need to know exactly what happened in your dreams. So tell me."

Bewildered, Anakin frowned at the other man.

"She dies," he said flatly.

"Yes, I understood that," Dr. Beckett told him dismissively. "What I meant was, can you tell me the exact content of the dreams. Detail by detail. How you saw her die, what the circumstances were. Can you do that?"

He could, yes, Anakin thought. But it would require him to re-live what happened in them. It was bad enough just knowing that it had happened ...

"Why?" he asked, his trepidation evident in his voice.

Dr. Beckett nodded understandingly.

"Speaking as a doctor," he began, "It's highly unlikely that your wife would die in childbirth, given the state of the medical facilities available here, even if there were unforeseen complications..."

Anakin nodded, closing his eyes in pain. It was much the same argument Padme had used, yet it didn't change the fact that he'd dreamed of her death. But the doctor was going on ...

"... however, I understand there was once an attempt on your wife's life awhile back. Now, also speaking as a doctor, I can tell you that in the event that a pregnant woman close to term is dying, the baby is usually taken from her to give it a chance to survive on its own."

Was it possible, Anakin thought? He'd never thought of it that way.

"Is she okay?" he asked quickly. "Has anyone tried to kill her?"

"She's fine right now," Dr. Beckett told him. "And, so far as I know, no one has tried to kill her recently. But I need the details from you so I can see if this is a possibility, and if so, how to prevent it."

Anakin nodded, swallowing. The war might be nearly over, but Char Diem was certainly still very much alive. The war had prevented him from continuing his pursuit of vengeance against Padme to such an extent that they'd all but forgotten about it, caught up as they were in the details of battle. And just because they knew Grievous' whereabouts did not mean the separatist leaders were there on Utapau with him. Anakin thought uneasily about how he himself was not present in the dreams.

"I've had two dreams," he began. "I had the first one several times. Then, the night we switched places, it was different."

"Okay, go on."

"In the first one, she's ... she's screaming in pain. Not the pain of birth; it's much worse. That's something I just know in the dream; it's not something I can see or tried to interpret later," he tried to explain. "She screams 'Anakin, please help me!' and then I wake up."

"Can you see anything else in the dream?" Dr. Beckett asked him. "How the baby is being delivered or where?"

Anakin shook his head. "I can't see any of that; just her face, mostly. I know the baby is coming, but, again, it's something I just know," he said. After another moment, he added, "She's wearing a white hospital gown, if that helps."

"Does her face look injured at all?"

"No, just in terrible pain. Her hair is loose; it isn't usually. But I'd guessed that maybe they did that for the birth."

"Okay," said Dr. Beckett, "Now, this knowledge you had about her pain and the birth occurring: Did you have the same kind of knowledge that the excessive pain was caused by the birth going wrong? Or did you just conclude that's what must have happened after you woke up?"

"I ..." he said, swallowing as a renewed rush of fear swept through him, "I just concluded that myself," he admitted before tears overwhelmed him and he buried his face in his hands._ I thought I had almost two more months and I don't, _he thought. _I would have gone; I would have left her ... _

"Anakin." Dr. Beckett's voice cut through his misery. "Tell me what happened in the other dream. Can you do that?"

His hands shook as he wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded.

"I should have figured this out for myself," he said bitterly. "I knew he'd tried to assassinate her before ..."

"The other dream," Beckett prompted again.

"She's lying there on a hospital bed almost unconscious," he began, unable to keep the resentment out of his voice as he added, "Obiwan is there with her."

"Obiwan Kenobi?"

"Yes," Anakin snapped. "He says, 'Don't give up, Padme; hang on,' and she says, 'I can't,' and ... and she dies. I ... I'm not there." He bit his lip to keep from sobbing out loud.

"And she doesn't appear injured in that dream either?"

"No."

"And she was giving birth in this dream, too?"

Anakin looked away. Fifteen minutes ago he would have said yes, she was. But now he wasn't sure. He didn't have the inner knowledge about it he'd had before; in truth, he'd simply assumed she was because she had been in the first dream he'd had. If he were completely honest, he could not even tell if she was still pregnant. He told Dr. Beckett as much.

"Does Obiwan know about your marriage?"

"No."

"Were you under the impression that he knew about it in this dream?"

"Yes, but ..." Anakin stopped, trying to think through the new information, "But it was only a conclusion I made after I woke up. Not absolute knowledge."

"May I tell him?"

"No!"

"Padme is under the impression that the Jedi would interfere if it does turn out to be another assassination attempt," Dr. Beckett told him.

She was right, he had to agree; they would at least assign her a protector as they had before. But how could he tell them without their guessing about the relationship? He had no concrete evidence to go on.

"I told her," the doctor said, "That if it came down to it and you had to choose, you'd pick her over the Jedi. Was I wrong?"

Anakin glanced back up at him in shock.

"No," he said automatically. "Not wrong." He hadn't thought of it that way - was that what he was doing? On the other hand, was it truly necessary to tell the Jedi about his marriage in order to save her? It might not be; he didn't know.

"I would like to tell Obiwan about the dreams," the doctor announced.

"No."

"Why not? It appears he's going to find out about them anyway - isn't it better that he finds out before something happens to her?"

"I just ..." Anakin stammered, frustration at Obiwan's superiority, and at his present helpless situation overwhelming him, "I just don't want him involved."

"So it's more important to you to keep Obiwan out of it than it is for Padme to survive."

"NO!" he shouted. "That's not what I meant!"

"What did you mean, then?"

Anakin sucked in air, struggling to catch his breath, his hands pressed to his temples. The fear of loss filled him; he fought it the only way he knew how, with his anger. It built up, a fire within, burning the fear away, steadying his shaking hands.

The other man continued to stare at him, waiting. Finally, he said, "Maybe I'm here because you are too jealous of Obiwan to see the situation clearly. I'm sure you would otherwise; you do know what's really important in the long run."

"_Stop it!!"_ Anakin hissed. "_Just stop it!! Stop acting like him!_ You think you know everything, how to solve everyone's problems! Why don't you solve your own? You're the one with a wife you can't even remember!"

The words hit Sam like bullets. He stared, uncomprehending, at the other man. But before he could recover from the shock, questions on his lips, the connection was broken. The hologram vanished. He was alone once again with his thoughts in the meditation chamber.


	11. Chapter 11

Sam sat down heavily on the hassock behind him. _Is it true?_ he wondered, though he knew, somehow, that it was. _Why didn't Al tell me? _he wondered next, though he knew the answer to that too. Thinking there was no way to get him back, Al hadn't wanted to further upset him with news of a wife he didn't remember having anyway. He imagined Anakin had been threatened at gunpoint (well, figuratively at gunpoint) to keep quiet about it, too, for all the good it had done. He'd pushed the other man too far and touched a raw nerve. It was information he could use; the kind he could only have gotten the way he'd done it, and would no doubt be invaluable in sorting out exactly what was wrong here. But ... _did_ he really have the right to try?

In truth, what Anakin had said was nothing Sam had not secretly wondered to himself all along. While he was beyond happy at being able to sort something out for someone who had lost their way, did he, in fact, have the right to interfere in their decisions? He had imagined, on occasion, how helpless it would make the person he replaced feel when they learned what was going on – someone else living their life, making decisions which would critically affect them. Suppose he chose wrongly? Left to themselves, they would have made the same wrong decision, but at least then they'd have only themselves to blame. He liked to think that God somehow sent him; that his unending series of jumps was his destiny, but was it? He remembered uneasily that Ziggy had said that Sam had the power to come home whenever he wanted to. If so, why didn't he want to? Was he unable to give it up? Was it more important to keep solving others' problems so he wouldn't have to face his own?

"Sam, I ..." said Al's voice hesitantly beside him.

He looked up at the hologram of his friend.

"I hope you didn't chew him up and spit him out for that," he said. "Who is she?"

"Donna Alessa. And I just had a little appetizer. I was going to finish the full course meal later."

"Donna?" Questions rose to his lips, but as he said her name and imagined her face, it came back to him. He'd made a jump once, a long time ago, it seemed, and set that right. In the new timeline, she'd married him. It was similar to what he'd done for Al. But why would he remember that perfectly and not remember his own altered history?

"You remember now?"

Sam nodded slowly.

"How does she feel about this?" he asked. "Does she know I didn't remember?"

"She understands," Al told him.

Sam looked away. _Great,_ he thought. _I fix everything for us and then screw it all up again myself. Anakin is right; I'm no better off than he is, maybe worse. At least he's not going around trying to fix everyone else's problems._

"Why am I even here, Al?" he asked.

"Is that a rhetorical question or do you expect an answer?"

"Do you have one?"

"I don't notice you leaping anywhere else just yet."

Sam looked away, his eyes settling blindly on a shaft of sunlight streaking in through the blinds, dust motes dancing in its wake.

"Will I remember her when I do?" he murmured. As he glanced back up at Al, he noticed his friend regarding him intently. "What?"

Al shook his head and looked down at his cigar.

"Are you gonna be all right now?" he asked. "Seriously."

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Sam told him, wondering if it was true. He looked up sharply. "Don't kill him."

"I can't," came the reply. "Lucky for him, he's in your body."

"I mean it, Al," Sam said. "Don't punish him. All he did was tell me the truth, and I'm glad he did."

Al frowned.

"And if he wants to talk to me again, let him," Sam added. "I mean it, Al."

Clearly unhappy, the other man grunted behind his cigar and closed the connection.

------

Anakin sat on the bed, huddled in the corner, hugging his knees. Why had he done that? Dr. Beckett had been trying to help him; how could he have been so cruel? Guiltily he heard his mother's voice, her words clear in his memory: _He helps others with no thought for himself._ Looking at him now, no one would have believed it. The words might describe Dr. Beckett, but they didn't apply to him anymore. What had happened to that boy, he wondered? If his mother were alive, she wouldn't recognize him. Tears welled in his eyes.

It was tempting to blame the Jedi for disillusioning him so; for their continued insinuation that they were better than he was, when in fact they were just as flawed. In truth, however, if that had changed him, he hadn't had to allow it. The tenets that they aspired to were good, if the individuals were not. He could have focused on what the Jedi - as an order - stood for, as Obiwan did, instead of on the hostility he'd sensed in those not worth respecting anyway. Somewhere along the line he'd lost the sense of what was important and ended up like those Jedi on the council he despised - lost in a continuous demonstration of his own self-importance.

He thought of the conversation he'd had with the chancellor, the night before he'd found himself here. They'd been talking about the difference between the Jedi and the Sith. The chancellor had implied there was no difference between the two - that both ultimately wanted power. Anakin had countered with the ideals of the Jedi - that they were selfless and thought only of others. _That they helped others with no thought for themselves._ The chancellor had been talking about the individuals, not the basis of the order. Anakin realized he'd looked at it the same way most of his life, despite being trained by Obiwan, the only one of them - excepting possibly Master Yoda - who really lived up to the ideal.

Mired in a continuous and exhausting war, they hadn't had much opportunity for selfless giving, aside from battling the separatist faction. Yet even when presented the opportunity during the rescue of the chancellor, his actions had hardly been selfless. He'd been almost as consumed by his need to best Count Dooku as he'd been to successfully rescue Palpatine. By his need to exact revenge, to serve punishment to someone who had wronged him. The chancellor had wanted him dead, yes (the chancellor had been his prisoner), and had said he'd found his need for revenge completely understandable. But then the chancellor wasn't a Jedi, and didn't truly understand them. He was a politician and naturally took a more worldly view. A long-ago conversation with Obiwan returned to him: his master stating his mistrust of all politicians and himself defending 'a few' - Palpatine, and Padme. Of course, he hadn't meant they held to the same high standards of conduct expected of a Jedi. Had he?

So far as Padme had been concerned, he had. And at the time, he realized he'd extended that same intent to the chancellor. He and Padme were from the same planet; they'd served together as long as he'd known them. Being close to the chancellor had made him feel closer to Padme at a time when she was nowhere around. He associated one with the other - plus the chancellor, genteel, polite, and soft-spoken, had accepted him at a time when most of his own order did not. However, if he were honest with himself, the two of them were really nothing alike.

Char Diem had once imprisoned Padme in her own palace, yet when he was finally caught, she'd allowed the Jedi to arrest him, not called for his execution, though presumably as Queen of the Naboo, she could have done so if she'd wished. And while she knew what he had done to the Sand People who'd killed his mother, she'd never told him his revenge was understandable and right. She'd simply said, without condemning him, that it was human to get angry and make a mistake. But most of all, she would never - never - have considered leaving a fallen comrade behind just to save herself. When Obiwan had been captured on Genosis, she'd been the first to suggest they rush to his rescue. Palpatine had been so anxious to save his own skin that he'd wanted Anakin to leave Obiwan behind to die on the _Invisible Hand_.

With a start, Anakin realized that even the most arrogant of the Jedi wouldn't have left even _him_ behind in a similar situation, though there was no doubt, now, that the chancellor would have discarded him just as easily as he had his master, if he'd deemed it necessary. True, it wasn't really in the chancellor's line to effect a rescue, but something told him that their friendship wouldn't come first if Palpatine suddenly deemed it politically necessary to end it, and that, as much as it hurt him to admit it, the chancellor's interest in him had always been politically expedient: As a boy, he'd saved - however inadvertently - Palpatine's home planet. It had been good publicity for the man to take an interest in such a boy's career and support him. And while their friendship had seemed to continue beyond that, was it really friendship in the way Anakin thought of it? Wasn't he, in truth, fulfilling a function for the chancellor right now?_ I want you to be my personal representative on the Jedi council,_ he had said. Wasn't this just using Anakin's position as a Jedi to his own advantage? Of course, the chancellor would claim it was advantageous to Anakin, too - a win-win situation. But to get it, hadn't he had to accept fundamentally the same job he'd condemned the Jedi for giving him - only in reverse? And for what? Because the chancellor had offered him an even trade, a favor, while the Jedi had not?

Looking at it objectively here, now, he thought it might even be possible the Jedis' refusal to grant him mastership might not be a personal affront after all, but simply a reaction to the chancellor's unwanted orders. Hadn't Obiwan even said as much originally? But he, Anakin, had been too busy being insulted. Why? The Jedi were bound by the decisions of the senate, but as individuals they weren't obligated to like the laws they passed so long as they followed them. A Jedi council of the highest ideal might not react in such a petty way to change, but, as he'd witnessed on many occasions, the council - with one or two exceptions - were not of the highest ideals. He'd bemoaned their feet of clay often enough, but now, sitting here away from everything, he could see that as flawed as they were, they were still fundamentally more selfless than the man who now commanded them.

Padme had been against Palpatine's recent move to command the Jedi. He hadn't thought about it much himself, being essentially disinterested in politics, but now, thinking about it this way, he had to agree with her. Although he'd seen the chancellor's point, years ago when the man had told him a single strong leader would be more effective than endless squabbling factions, did that really apply here? Yes, the Jedi were insufferably arrogant, but the council had never argued within itself. Nor had they ever refused to accept the requests the senate - and chancellor - had made of them with respect to the war. His wife was right - it hadn't been necessary. And Palpatine should have known it wasn't necessary. But with a knot in the pit of his stomach, Anakin realized that if the war abruptly ended after the chancellor had taken control - which it would as soon as Grievous were defeated - his takeover would look effective to the senate, who had been fooled as he had been, and without even the close ties to the Jedi which he'd had to guide him.

Anakin still believed a single strong leader could do the most good - but only if that leader was someone wise. Someone who was willing to help others with no thought for themselves. Once he'd thought Palpatine could be that leader, but he knew better now. The chancellor had said it himself: _All those who gain power are afraid to lose it._ What the chancellor wanted; what he was getting; what he had received, was power.

Shivering, Anakin hugged himself tighter, mourning for the loss of a friendship he'd never really had. All this time he'd thought that at least Palpatine had accepted him without reservation; that at least someone in his new life cared. It wasn't true. He had no one. He was genuinely alone - except for Padme, of course. And to a lesser extent Obiwan. His master hadn't wanted to accept him at first, but after Qui-Gon had died, he'd defied the council to train him, and had done it without arrogance or judgement. They were all he had now. All he'd ever had since his mother had died. Dr. Beckett was right - Obiwan would have to know. His master was the only one he could trust.


	12. Chapter 12

Knowing his master would have to know didn't make it any easier for Anakin to accept. If he could be sure that telling Obiwan would somehow prevent Padme from dying, it would be one thing, but there was no guarantee that telling him wouldn't create the very problem he sought to avoid. He knew that second-guessing actions to that extent would lead to nothing but an impasse, where he would get lost between action and inaction, afraid that whichever choice he made would somehow cause what he feared most to come about. And, if he were completely honest with himself, he had still not forgotten the way Obiwan had dismissed the dreams he'd had about his mother. Rationally, he knew that the blame for her death lay on no one but himself (Sand People notwithstanding), but a tiny corner of his mind insisted that if only his master had understood, he would have been able to reach her before it was too late. He knew that same fear contributed to his hesitation to tell Obiwan now, though it wasn't the only reason. If only he could be sure that Dr. Beckett had come to save Padme, and not for some other, more selfless (selfless from Anakin's viewpoint) reason.

A rapid double knock on the door a millisecond before it opened announced the arrival of Admiral Calavicci. Anakin leaned his shoulders back against the wall and brought his chin up, though he didn't straighten his legs. He'd been expecting this; the admiral had warned him not to let Dr. Beckett know he'd forgotten his wife and he'd willfully disobeyed. The reason didn't matter; he'd have to face the other man's wrath, as he deserved. But the admiral said nothing, just glared at him thoughtfully in silence, while a curl of smoke trailed skyward from the burning spice-stick he held.

Anakin swallowed, waiting, but still the man said nothing, apparently lost in thought as he frowned down upon his prisoner. Finally, Anakin said, "If it helps, there is nothing you could possibly do to me that would hurt me more than losing my wife."

At his words, the admiral harrumphed and flicked some ash from the spice-stick onto the floor.

"You think he's gonna let her die, is that it?" he said.

Anakin said nothing.

"Well, I guess you don't know very much about how all this works, then," the man told him pointedly. "Do you have any idea what started all this off?" The spice-stick described a large arc above his bed with his gesture. "Why he went back into the project again in the first place? Because he didn't have to. He'd made it back, once."

Again, Anakin said nothing.

"He did it for me," the admiral said simply. "He went back to convince my wife not to give up on me, thirty-five years ago." He paused, and for a moment Anakin wondered if he intended to elaborate, but finally, he added, "There was a war back then; you've never heard of it, and it doesn't matter what it was about. I was taken prisoner. As is the case with a lot of wars, the so-called rules weren't followed, and the prisoners they took weren't reported, which got me listed as missing in action. So far as most civilians at home were concerned, missing in action was as good as dead. She waited five years for me, not knowing. Finally she gave up, had me declared legally dead, and married someone else. Then the war ended and I came home. That was the original story. Sam - Dr. Beckett - went back and convinced her to wait. We're still married today. She doesn't remember it any other way, but I remember both realities. I remember what I was like after I lost her. It wasn't pretty." He looked down at the spice-stick for a long time, watching the smoke lick at its tip. "But that's what he does," he added. "He jumps in time to help people. Individuals, not the sweeping course of political history. He's not gonna let her die if he can help it."

Anakin nodded, closing his eyes. He hadn't known that about the project and was glad the admiral had told him, and not only because it gave him more hope that Dr. Beckett would save Padme. Since first meeting him, Anakin had sensed that Admiral Calavicci was someone he could not only respect, but understand, and who could understand him. Someone who had earned respect through the life he led, not through flattery or through the office he held. And though his master was also deserving of respect, Obiwan's life had been too sheltered for him to ever completely understand how Anakin felt. He was compassionate, but in an academic way, not through his own hard experience. Anakin supposed all the Jedi were that way, having been isolated in the temple since infancy. Master Yoda's well-intentioned but completely unrealistic advice concerning what to do about his dream premonition was a perfect example of how out-of-touch they were with anyone not endemic to their order.

He looked up in time to see the admiral's back in the doorway as he was leaving.

"Wait!" he called, wondering as he did so if the man would. But he needn't have worried; Admiral Calavicci looked back at him curiously. "I was wondering," said Anakin breathlessly, "if you would help me with something."

His interest clearly piqued, the admiral came back into the room, closing the door behind him.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

"That intelligence message I was supposed to deliver to the council - I told you about it before?" When the other man nodded, Anakin continued, "If Dr. Beckett isn't there to handle that ... that is, if he's really there just to save Padme ... then I'll still have to do it, but it'll be late."

The man stared at him speculatively for a moment.

"Son, you know they were never gonna send you in command of that mission, if that's what you're thinking," he finally said.

Anakin blinked. He'd been more worried about the news growing old than commanding the mission, since by now he'd almost convinced himself that Padme would die while he was away. But the admiral's words came as a shock, nevertheless.

"You were their ear in the chancellor's office," the man explained. "They weren't gonna give that up. And the chancellor knew it, too, you can bet on it, or he'd never have suggested it. After all, you were his ear in the council, too. Just like a politician to make himself look good by giving you permission to do something he knew you wouldn't get from the other side."

Anakin felt as if he'd been kicked. How long had it taken him to figure out that the chancellor was just using him, and the admiral had seen it immediately? He felt ashamed. But there was something else about what the man had said; some ugly implication that made his skin crawl. Yet he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was ...

His thoughts were interrupted by the need to call the admiral back from the door once again.

"I didn't mean ... I didn't mean that," he said. "I ... I wanted to know ... your advice ... on whether I should deliver it anyway or whether it's too late."

Without closing the door, the man replied, "I don't know enough about the situation to give you an answer on that."

"I could tell you."

"You can't tell me whether the enemy is still at the same location, can you? That's what I'd need to know. But if you knew that, you'd know yourself and you wouldn't need my help."

He started to close the door. Frantically, Anakin called him back a third time, wishing he knew how to put what he needed from the other man, but in truth, he wasn't quite sure himself. All he had was the absolutely certain feeling deep inside that Admiral Calavicci could somehow help him see what to do.

"Can I ..." he began tentatively, "Can I just tell you what I know about the war - everything I know, and ... and maybe get your opinion on it?" He almost winced; the question sounded weak even to him. But still he went on, "I think it would help to have someone not directly involved look at the situation - plus you could give the background information to Dr. Beckett," he added hastily.

The admiral raised an eyebrow, but to Anakin's relief, came back into the room and closed the door, taking out a stylus and small notepad of wood pulp.

"Okay," he said. "You're on."

------

Over three hours later he finished. As the separatists were led by Nute Gunray, he'd decided to start thirteen years ago when the Trade Federation had declared war on Naboo. The admiral took copious notes and stopped him several times to ask questions. Anakin had finally ended with the chancellor's rescue and his subsequent assimilation of the Jedi order. The other man stared at his notepad, tapping his stylus idly on the page in the sudden silence. At last he looked up.

"Did that help you to lay it all out like that?" he asked.

Anakin thought about it. If he hadn't decided on his own that the chancellor had amassed a lot of power he didn't really need, the story he'd just told the admiral should certainly have alerted him. It was all he could do to not cringe with embarrassment every time he'd had to say the senate voted more emergency powers to him. Not that the admiral knew it, but Anakin remembered Padme's reservations about each of those votes, and he also remembered that he'd defended the chancellor to her each time. And why? Because of a friendship that didn't really exist. Because he'd thought Palpatine's motives pure.

But this had nothing to do with what he'd asked the admiral to help him with. Just because he no longer respected the chancellor didn't mean the intelligence he'd passed along wasn't valid.

"I ... I don't ..." he began, "... What did _you_ think?"

Admiral Calavicci leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. His eyes dropped to Anakin's.

"It's a lot of information," he said. "To do it justice, I'd have to study it for awhile."

Disappointed, Anakin looked away, nodding. He understood. In fact, he should have expected as much, he thought.

"But off the top of my head," the admiral continued, "this 'gift' army is just setting off all my warning systems." He scratched his head. "If they were - what'd you call them, droids? - If they were droids, I'd be worried about them being programmed with a latent virus. The whole thing just smells like a Trojan horse."

"What's that?"

"An innocent-looking gift an enemy gives you that causes your downfall if you accept it."

"But the separatists didn't give us the clones."

"You don't know where they came from, son."

"But it doesn't make any sense for them to come from the separatists," Anakin insisted. "They could have won the war immediately if we didn't have them. And they're people anyway, not droids. People can't be programmed."

"Maybe not," the admiral admitted with a sigh. "But look at it this way: You said the clones were ordered from the err ... manufacturer ... ten years before the war began. Well, you told me ..." - he flipped through his notes - "...that ten years before the war started was when this Trade Federation got defeated. It's too much of a coincidence, almost like someone knew the Trade Federation was going to start a war again; not only that, but exactly when. But if they did know why didn't they warn anyone, unless they're on the other side?"

"The council thinks Master Syfo-Dias was killed before he could explain why he ordered them."

"Why didn't he explain before he went off and committed the funding? And you said the senate didn't know about them either, but they'd have to if they had to approve the budget. It doesn't add up. I don't think he ordered them at all - if he was killed at that time. It's much more likely that someone killed him and assumed his identity to place the order. Someone with enough money of their own to finance it, so the government wouldn't ask questions about the cost."

"But why?"

The admiral shook his head.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But it just doesn't look right. It's too ... choreographed. Like it's a performance, not a war."

"A lot of good people have died in it," Anakin countered defensively.

"I'm not saying they didn't," the admiral assured him. "I'm just saying the whole setup stinks. It shouldn't be that predictable." He frowned suddenly, his brows knitting together.

"What is it?" Anakin asked him.

The other man's dark eyes bored into his own.

"You said that if that intelligence report got delivered, the war would end?" he asked.

Anakin nodded.

"Most likely. It would eliminate the last of their military leaders."

"Don't deliver it."

"Why not?"

The admiral sighed heavily.

"Someone has a timetable," the man told him. "There's a schedule involved - the war started on someone's schedule. My bet is it's set to end on schedule, too, but not the way you think. Throw the schedule off; wait until you know what's going on."

"Wait to end the war?" Anakin asked. "But more people could die."

The admiral spread his hands.

"That's always the catch," he said. "It's a war. You asked me what I thought. Of course, I haven't had time to study what you told me in detail." He stood up to go.

"Wait," said Anakin once again.

"I really can't say anymore than I've already told you."

"No, I ..." Anakin swallowed. "I know it's probably worthless, but would you tell Dr. Beckett I apologize for my behavior earlier and that if he thinks it's best to ... to tell Obiwan about our marriage, to go ahead."

He stared at the older man hesitantly, trying to read the thoughts behind his dark eyes.

"Tell him yourself," came the answer.


	13. Chapter 13

Sam sat numbly on the bed in Anakin's quarters in the temple. He'd come here to be alone and think, and hadn't wanted to continue to tie up one of the meditation rooms. Actually, he was supposed to be on duty in the senate building, spying away on the chancellor's activities, but the thought of spending the day there - or even going there for a few moments - revolted him. And, even if it hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to sort his thoughts out in that bustling place.

He stared at his surroundings. Virtually a monastic cell, the room was tiny, windowless, austere - and sterile. There was nothing personal about anything in it. Sam imagined this could be the result of Anakin not really occupying the room, but he doubted it. Surely if that were the case, anyone else who saw the anonymous-looking quarters might become suspicious, and he had managed to find the razor he'd needed in here. There were sets of (identical) clothes, and other necessities. But nothing else. Sam suspected everyone's room looked much the same way. They'd all taken vows (in his opinion before they even knew what they were promising) to forego a personal life and live entirely and completely for the sake of others.

The line of thought nagged him. Wasn't that essentially what he was doing? He'd been judging the Jedi order as some extremist, ascetic group since he'd arrived here, but wasn't he just like them? Were they actually right about it - was it necessary to give up all ties to do what they (and he) did? Was he as wrong to have married Donna as they considered (or would consider, if they knew) Anakin wrong to marry Padme? But if that was true, why had God (or Providence, or the Force, or whatever it was) altered things so he could?

A light winked into existence beside him and he looked up, expecting to see Al, surprised to find Anakin staring down at him contritely.

"I ... um ... I wanted to apologize for my behavior," he began.

"No need," Sam told him. "As I told Al - Admiral Calavicci - I'm glad to have found out. I hope he wasn't too hard on you for it."

The other man nodded tightly, and said, "If you want to ... to ... to tell Obiwan, it's okay." It seemed to cost him an effort to say so.

"If you don't mind me asking," Sam began, picking his words carefully; the last thing he wanted to do was create a repeat of what had happened the last time, "Could you tell me exactly why you were so against him knowing about it before? I know the Jedi are not supposed to know or you'll be expelled, but there seemed more to it than just that when I asked about Obiwan."

Anakin looked down and away, his eyes darting at thoughts only he could see. He licked his lips, and Sam thought for a moment he would refuse, or worse. But finally, he said hesitantly, "He just ... He's ... He's so true to the code. He ... um ... he wouldn't understand. He'd think ... he'd say ... he'd give me a long lecture on why it was wrong. To marry Padme. And ... and ... why the baby was a mistake." He blinked, and Sam could see tears in his eyes as he continued, "Marrying her wasn't wrong. The only wrong thing was keeping it a secret, but it's too late now to change that without ... and ..." - he looked directly at Sam - "The Force meant for us to be married. I know that; it's ... I'm more sure of that than anything. But it's against the code and the code is everything to him. Our baby is a blessing, but he'll try to turn her into a mistake that should never have happened."

A chill ran down Sam's spine at the similarity between this and what he'd just been thinking. Only, in this instance, it seemed Anakin was the one who could see clearly whereas Sam could not. What he said made sense in light of God allowing him to change things so Donna wouldn't run away. But if Anakin was so sure of it, why was he convinced his wife was destined to die when his child was born? As some sort of divine punishment for their keeping the marriage a secret? And did that mean that Sam's inability to jump home was punishment of some kind as well? If so, what?

It occurred to him that he invariably felt a tiny stab of guilt every time he wished he could just stop jumping and go home. There were so many people in the world, that had lived during his lifetime, who deserved a second chance at their lives; people who'd made a single, fatal error that had cost them everything. Who was he to take that chance away from them? Who was he to be so selfish when he had the power to help?

_That's why I don't jump home, _he realized suddenly. _Because of that guilt. If I could get rid of the guilt, I could go home - I could see Donna; we could have our life together. But I can't rationalize it away. That's what Ziggy meant by saying I could come home anytime I wanted to._

He looked up at the hologram of the man whose identity he had assumed, realizing that he must care a great deal for Obiwan's good opinion. If the Jedi Master reacted as badly as he expected him to, it would only amplify the guilt he felt. Then ...

Then what? He was missing something; something critical. What was it?

But Anakin was going on, talking about Al having asked him to relay something to him ...

"... asked me to go ahead and tell you the history of the civil war myself, like I told it to him," he said.

Sam nodded, trying to focus on the present so he could remember.

"I'm going to add the part about Padme to it that I didn't before when I told the admiral," he said. "It won't take long, but I wanted you to know why I'm sure the Force meant us to be together." With that he began the long tale.

When he'd finished, Sam was certain he'd added far more to it than he'd probably said to Al, despite the fact that his own life seemed intricately connected to the progress of the war. In addition to the story of how and when he'd first met his wife, and an abbreviated version of their courtship, ten years later, he also managed to include a chillingly sad anecdote of how his mother had died; how he'd foreseen her death in several dreams, and how his master Obiwan had dismissed them. This, along with what he had surmised before, gave Sam the clearest picture ever of why Anakin had tried seeking the help of the council head and not that of his former master, regardless (and essentially because of) their closeness.

"I won't tell Obiwan any more than I have to," he assured Anakin. "If he asks me, I won't lie, but I won't volunteer anything other than what you saw in the dreams."

Anakin nodded solemnly, but by his expression, Sam could tell he didn't think it would do any good. Still, he said nothing in protest, simply added, "The admiral wants me to tell you not to deliver the intelligence report," as if Sam had never spoken. And then he explained why.

"But he also said that he hasn't had enough time to really study everything about it," he hastened to add afterwards, the words tumbling out of him so fast it was obvious to Sam that he disagreed with Al's assessment. Sam wasn't so sure. He knew there was something very wrong with the entire situation here, but hadn't been able to determine exactly what it was. Had Al managed to come up with a piece of the puzzle? He'd have to ask some questions, and it seemed like Obiwan would be a good place to start.

Conscious, however, of his host's continued presence, he was struck once again by how helpless the other man must feel, especially in this instance. Here he was, forced to relay information about himself, about his life, for other people to pass judgment on, whether he agreed with it or not. Sam wondered if there was some way to include him without rendering the whole concept of his jump meaningless.

Maybe, he thought, there was. If Anakin would agree, that is.

"Why don't you stay with me while I go talk to Obiwan?" he said. "That way you can see for yourself what happens, and if you think of anything I'm forgetting, you can remind me. If you want me to do something, you can suggest that, too, but I can't guarantee I will. Does that sound okay to you?"

Shocked by the offer, Anakin sputtered a protest. He didn't really want to see how Obiwan would react, he said.

"But you've already imagined the worst possible reaction in your mind," Sam pointed out. "He may not react that badly at all - wouldn't you want to know that?"

Still the man hesitated.

Sam started to argue further, then decided against it. He would simply go find Obiwan and let Anakin make the choice himself.


	14. Chapter 14

It didn't take Sam long to locate Obiwan. Anakin, who so far had stayed with him, made several suggestions about where he might be, and they found him just heading into the gymnasium, the first place on the list.

He'd looked up, surprised to see Anakin, but obviously delighted.

"Ah, Anakin!" he exclaimed. "Care to spar a few rounds with me then?"

"Uh ... no," stuttered Sam, aware that he'd give himself away completely if he even attempted to fake it.

"No?!" Obiwan was incredulous.

"I'd never have turned down a chance at lightsaber practice," Anakin quietly explained in his ear. Sam imagined there was a slightly wistful quality to the statement, or maybe he hadn't imagined it at all.

"I need to talk to you," he said to Obiwan.

The other man abruptly became serious at his tone.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Can we go somewhere ..." Sam gestured with his eyes to indicate he wanted privacy.

"Of course," Obiwan agreed, turning away from the gym. As they headed down the corridor, he said, "A meditation room again?"

Sam thought a moment.

"No, they always seem to be occupied," he said. "Let's go to my quarters."

"Mine are closer," Obiwan offered, and led the way.

Once there, Sam noticed he'd been right about the lack of personalization being uniform to the order. Obiwan's room was as sterile as Anakin's unused one had been. But he didn't have a long time to dwell on this because once the door had closed behind them, the room's owner turned and asked, "Now, what did you want to talk about?" while the real Anakin in the hologram began showing acute signs of nervousness, folding his arms tightly across his chest and looking anywhere but at them.

"I, um ... I've been having dreams again," Sam said, "Like the ones I had about my mother just before she died."

Obiwan took the news in silence, but Sam could see he was deeply disturbed by it._ Looks like he's not going to just dismiss it, then,_ he thought, thinking that, at least, should bolster Anakin.

But then Obiwan said, "And you're absolutely sure this was like those and not just a regular dream?"

"I knew it!" the real Anakin fumed angrily. "He just can't ..."

Sam tuned him out and calmly replied, "Yes, I'm sure."

Obiwan sat down heavily on the bed. Fortunately, Anakin had ceased his rant, though Sam was surprised to see him still present.

"Who is it about this time?" Obiwan asked.

"Padme."

The other man looked up at him so sharply that for a moment, Sam wondered if he hadn't guessed the nature of their relationship long ago. But all he said was, "Did you see any details?"

"Not really," Sam admitted, and went on to fill Obiwan in on the content of both dreams. "You were with her in the second one," he finished, "You told her to hold on and not give up."

"_**I**_ was there?" Great surprise was evident in his voice.

Sam nodded.

"Do you have any idea how long we have?"

Sam shook his head.

"No longer than two months," he speculated. "But probably not that."

"Why two months?"

Sam took a deep breath. He'd wanted to avoid any direct mention of their marriage or the baby if he could help it. But there was no way to avoid it now while still answering the question.

"Padme is pregnant," he said.

Anakin, who had been standing beside him up until now, began to pace.

"Yes, I could tell," the Jedi Master replied wryly.

"When I had the first dream, I had a sense of the baby being born at the same time," he began, but stopped when he noticed the other man's attention flagging. He seemed to be trying to listen to what Sam was saying, but he was clearly distracted by something else apparently moving about the room. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh," Obiwan said, slightly flustered, "No, nothing. It's just that I've got the strangest impression that you're moving around."

"It's me; I'm causing it," Anakin said, his voice rising in panic. "He can sense I'm here somehow. I can't stay; I'll ruin everything." And with that, the hologram winked off.

Disappointed that Anakin had found an excuse to leave, Sam had to admit that it seemed to solve Obiwan's problem. He listened intently while Sam told him he'd thought she was dying in childbirth, how he'd gone to Master Yoda for help, and the reaction he'd gotten there.

"But after the second dream, I'm not sure that's why she dies at all," he said.

"I didn't know anyone died in childbirth anymore," Obiwan mused, then asked, "Did you tell Master Yoda it was Senator Amidala you'd dreamt about?"

"No, I just said it was someone close to me."

Obiwan nodded.

"I'll bet he thought you were talking about me, then," he speculated. "The advice is sound, but ..."

"But we didn't just let her die when someone was trying to assassinate her," Sam said.

"Exactly," Obiwan agreed. "Even though you do need to let go of your attachment to her" - he glared pointedly at Sam - "if he had known it was a critical member of the senate, he would have at least looked into it to make sure her death was natural." He stopped, thinking for a moment. "But then, maybe he did," he added, as much to himself as to Sam. "He wouldn't necessarily have told you about it if he wanted you to lose the attachment."

"But ..."

"I know, I know. It doesn't seem like a natural death to me, either," Obiwan agreed. "I just don't see how anyone could die in childbirth these days, and even if she did, why would I be there with her? It doesn't add up."

"I wondered if someone might be going to try to assassinate her again," Sam offered.

Obiwan tugged thoughtfully at his beard.

"We've only to rout General Grievous and the war will be over," he said. "There are no critical bills in the senate at the moment that would interest the Separatists so far as I know. There's no reason ..." He stopped, thinking, then admitted, "But they _are_ losing. It's quite possible they may try something like that as a parting shot."

"Can't we do something?"

Obiwan sighed.

"I know you won't like hearing this, but the council won't get involved just on the facts of your dream. They'd need verifiable evidence of a threat against her. Because it could still, however unfortunately, turn out to be a natural death."

"What if the first verifiable threat succeeds?" Sam asked.

Obiwan looked at him.

"I just said the council wouldn't get involved. I never said _I_ wouldn't help. Now, " he said, "we just have to get _her_ to see that a threat might exist. Do you think she'll be at all open to the possibility?"

"I already told her I thought it was a possibility."

Obiwan's eyes widened.

"You told her about the dreams?" he asked, surprised. "Well, then, how did she react?"

"At first, she didn't want to believe it, but I think she might have decided another assassination attempt was possible."

"So, is she doing anything to prevent it?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "I tried to convince her to go home early. She was going to go a month from now anyway to have the baby."

"And did you convince her?"

"I'm not sure. I think she might be making plans to go, but ..."

"Well, let's go see her now, then, to make sure," the other man suggested. "And if she's dragging her feet about it, I'll add my opinion to yours to help speed her up."

------

Anakin allowed Admiral Calavicci to lead him silently back to his room and leave him there. Unlike in the capital district of Coruscant, it was dark outside now wherever their project was located. He sat down gingerly on the bed and tried to calm himself. In a way he wished he'd been able to stay long enough to hear Dr. Beckett tell Obiwan about his marriage. At least then he'd know for certain the secret was out. At least then they could stop hiding it and go on with their lives, like normal people. But at the same time, he was glad to be spared the look on Obiwan's face, the disappointment in his eyes, and the inevitable lecture he would deliver. Unfortunately, Anakin couldn't be sure it was over. From the way the conversation had gone at the start, it was still possible (however unlikely) that Dr. Beckett had not had to tell him at all. Though he doubted it very much. To his surprise, he realized then that he _wanted_ it all to be over. He _wanted_ someone to know. He wanted to stop hiding.

He swallowed, trying to gather his thoughts enough to center himself, even though he really couldn't do it in the Force. _The Force ..._

How had Obiwan been able to sense his presence? He was only there as a hologram, surely? He should no more sense his presence there than he would in a transmission. Was it some other curious quirk of their project that holograms could become real? But if that were so, shouldn't Obiwan have sensed someone else standing there, and not two of himself? But he hadn't said he thought someone else was in the room; he'd specifically said he thought _Anakin_ was moving around. Hadn't they switched bodies specifically so Dr. Beckett would receive his Force-presence and be able to deceive the Jedi? How could he have retained any of it then, and if he had, why couldn't he feel it? The midichlorians were in his blood, not Dr. Beckett's. Dr. Beckett, in his own body, couldn't use the ...

_You tore up the room pretty thoroughly when you first arrived,_ Dr. Alessa had told him when he'd first met her. _Using your mind._

He'd used the Force, _after_ he'd traded placed with Dr. Beckett. How was that possible? Dr. Beckett wasn't a ... wasn't ... he was ...

_I'm in another galaxy, somewhere in the distant future, _Anakin thought. _Dr. Beckett is another Chosen One._


	15. Chapter 15

Anakin pondered the revelation he'd just had. It made sense now. Dr. Beckett was a Chosen One; that was why the project worked as it did and not exactly as he'd designed it to work. The Force had interfered and changed it, altered it to help people who shouldn't have been punished forever for a single wrong choice. He was a Chosen One, but he wasn't fighting the evil Sith, mortal enemies of the Jedi, he was simply helping people one at a time. He was bringing balance back to the Force.

Anakin hadn't always dreamed presciently only of death. When he was a child, before Padme and Qui-Gon had come to Tatooine, he'd known he'd become a Jedi one day, then return and free all the slaves. Only half of that dream had so far come true, and he'd nearly forgotten about it. But now, he realized that was part of his destiny, too. He was to defeat the Sith, yes, but that in itself would not restore balance. He would have to help people - he would _get _to help people - on a more personal level, as Dr. Beckett did.

But there was more to it than even that. What he had discovered about the lack of midichlorians in a Chosen One meant that the organisms were not as essential to the Force as the Jedi taught. He had always assumed that the midichorians _were_ the Force in some incomprehensible way; that the manifestation of the Force which the Jedi could bring about was due to some unseen interaction of midichlorians with each other. But he saw now that really wasn't possible; there were no midichlorians at all in a rock, for instance, yet he could, using the Force, move the rock around if he so chose. He suspected that the higher concentrations of midichlorians possessed by the Jedi simply allowed them to more easily learn to manipulate the Force, and nothing more, and that even someone not ordinarily considered Force-sensitive could use the Force; they would simply have a more difficult time in learning to do so. But once learned ...

He kicked his shoes off, tossing them out into the middle of the floor out of reach. Staring down at them, he imagined what they would feel like through the Force, felt their distance and size and heft in his memory and imagination. Then, holding onto that visualization, he lifted one of them. It rose into the air, exactly as he directed. He did, still, have the Force. It was simply that he could no longer use the midichlorians as a shortcut to feel it.

For the first time he realized that the Force was not just a collection of microorganisms trying to attain balance in their environment, but something greater which couldn't be explained in humanoid terms, but which nevertheless cared, somehow, about people's lives and wanted them to be happy.

------

As they returned from Padme's apartment, Master Windu met them in the hangar bay just as Sam's canopy popped open. He climbed out to stand beside Obiwan.

"The chancellor wants to see you right away, Skywalker," the man told him curtly, glowering like a drill sergeant. His face visibly relaxed as he turned to Obiwan, dismissing Sam, evidently expecting him to rush to the chancellor's bidding. There was nothing Sam wanted to do less, and, when Obiwan glanced his way in farewell, he tried to make it known through his expression, hoping Windu wouldn't notice.

"Excuse us a moment, would you Master Windu?" Obiwan said. "I'd forgotten there was something I needed to talk to Anakin about, and I'd rather do it now before I forget again."

Windu nodded, but made no move to leave.

"Oh, dash it all," exclaimed Obiwan. "I need my notes and I've gone and left them in my quarters. You have time to come up for a second before you go, don't you Anakin?"

Sam nodded.

"Sure," he said smoothly.

"The chancellor was very adamant," the acting council head objected.

"It'll only be a moment," Obiwan promised. "He won't even notice the difference."

Apparently mollified (it was difficult for Sam to tell for sure), Windu finally let them go.

When they were safely inside with the door shut, Obiwan turned to him and said, "I hope this is good after the performance I just had to put on out there. What is the matter with going to see the chancellor?"

Sam knew if he went back, the chancellor would ask about the intelligence report, and, of course, he'd have no answer for him, but he couldn't very well tell that to Obiwan. "I'm just not comfortable going to see the chancellor," he finally said; then, feeling more explanation was in order, added,. "Not after seeing what happened at that meeting I told you about." 

Obiwan stared at him for a moment, then began to pace, clearly disturbed by Anakin's sudden refusal to even associate with a man he'd formerly adored. "You didn't object to anything he said?" he asked, stopping to look Sam directly in the face. "To him, I mean."

"No, I didn't think it would do any good," Sam answered.

"I take it Senator Amidala was at this meeting?"

Sam told him she was.

The other man nodded. "Well, at least now I know why she kept glaring at you this afternoon."

"She was glaring at me?" Sam asked incredulously. From his point of view, she'd been beseeching him not to make her leave without him. They'd finally gotten her to agree to go if she could wait until the following morning to leave. Obiwan and Sam had thought this was acceptable provided she told no one except her ship's captain what she planned.

"Evidently she felt you should have interceded with the chancellor on the delegation's behalf," Obiwan went on. "But I think you were right; if you'd taken their side it wouldn't have accomplished anything except to make him suspicious of you. But you can go back and he won't be any the wiser."

"I don't want to go back," Sam insisted.

Obiwan smiled sympathetically.

"I know," he said. "But it won't be too much longer. The war is nearly over; when it is, he'll have to relinquish his emergency power. For now, just do what you've been doing and agree with whatever he says and everything will be fine."

Sam was at an impasse. He didn't really see how he could continue to stall about it when they really had no idea whether it related to what he was here for or not. So far Obiwan had been far more perceptive and helpful than Anakin had led him to believe he would be; should he trust him with news of the report? He didn't really see that he had much choice.

"That's not the whole story," he admitted, and confessed that he'd suppressed the intelligence report on Grievous.

Obiwan was incredulous that he'd do such a thing and wanted him to march up to the council chambers to deliver it immediately, but he managed to finally explain his reasoning (well, Al's reasoning). To his credit, Obiwan listened to him and didn't dismiss what he'd said. But his advice (which was more along the line of an order) was that Anakin should make the report to the council, along with his interpretation, and let them decide whether it had any merit or not.

Dismayed, Sam picked his next words carefully.

"I don't feel the council will look at my assessment objectively," he said, "If they know I'm the one who came up with it."

Obiwan was taken aback.

"Anakin, the council is not against you, as you unfortunately seem to believe," he scolded. "If they disagree it's because they have more experience in this than you do."

Sam blinked. The other man's words were, to him, impossibly naive, yet he obviously believed in what he'd said wholeheartedly. It occurred to Sam that Obiwan was one of those rare people who was so honest and good himself that he couldn't see the shortcomings of the others in his position. He was as blind to the faults of the council as he was to Anakin's relationship with Padme (and he _was_ blind to it; the comment about her glaring at him was enough to convince Sam of that). No wonder Anakin couldn't face his master's reaction when he found out. It wouldn't be an ordinary disappointment.

"They don't have more experience," Sam stated flatly. "Before this war started three years ago there hadn't been a war here in a thousand generations. They don't have any more experience than you or I do." He could see the other man start to protest automatically, and hurried to add, "In fact, I have more, because they didn't grow up on a brutal planet and I did." He was absolutely certain that Al, at least, had more experience than any of them, and it was_his_ assessment.

The other man set his mouth at what Sam supposed he considered insolence, his eyes reflecting deep disappointment. Sam realized there was nothing more he could say to convince him.

"If you want the council to know, you can tell them, leaving my assessment in or out of it," he said quietly.

"I never said they shouldn't at least listen to your assessment," came the reply quickly. "For your information, I happen to think it explains some things I've wondered about. However, it is not up to you alone to make the decision."

"And if they decide to go after Grievous immediately, what will happen?" Sam asked.

"When he's caught, the war will end."

"No, I mean before that," Sam clarified. "How will they handle it?"

"One of the Jedi will be sent to Utapau with a detachment of clones."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Whomever they decide is the best choice to go."

"The Jedi with the best fighting skills, wouldn't you say?"

"Anakin, you aren't thinking they'll let you ..."

"No, of course not," Sam said. "What I'm thinking is that it appears that the sole purpose of this war is to scatter the Jedi across the galaxy and leave very few experienced ones on this planet."

Obiwan blinked and Sam could see the beginning of genuine consideration in his eyes.

"Let me know what you're going to tell them so I can make my report to the chancellor," Sam said.

"If we don't tell the council, what are you going to say to him?" Obiwan asked.

"I don't know," Sam said truthfully. "I'll make up some excuse."

"It's likely he has spies everywhere," the other man warned. "You won't know what he already knows."

Sam waited for the other man to decide what he would do.

"I'll go with you," Obiwan finally said.


	16. Chapter 16

"The Jedi are debating what to do about the report," Obiwan told the chancellor smoothly, in answer to his question.

Palpatine broke the enigmatic stare with which he had favored Sam long enough to reply, "The Jedi are under my command now, Master Kenobi. They will do as I bid."

At that moment, the hologram of Anakin appeared. Sam blinked, but ignored it. By now he was used to Al's intruding at odd moments; this was no different. He'd be able to hear whatever Anakin had to say, but couldn't acknowledge it without appearing to talk to thin air.

But Anakin didn't say much of anything. Apparently noticing that he'd intruded at an awkward moment, he murmured an apology and then stood to watch what they were doing.

"Return at once and tell them that if they don't act on the information immediately, I'll have the council arrested for treason. I only hope they aren't too late as it is; if Grievous does manage to escape, believe me, the Jedi _will_ be held accountable. Is that clear?"

"Err ... very much so, Chancellor," Obiwan replied contritely. For a moment Sam feared that he would be unduly swayed by the political leader's threats, but, as before, he seemed oddly distracted by Anakin's hologram. Sam wished there was some way he could furtively signal Anakin to go away; he needed Obiwan's full attention.

"Anakin," the chancellor began smoothly, his voice much more friendly, having dismissed Obiwan from the conversation. Sam and the real Anakin both looked up, but oddly, the man didn't speak immediately. Instead, he seemed to become confused, blinking and squinting first at Sam and then ... and then at the hologram? His behavior wasn't exaggerated, but it was noticeable given his normal extreme composure. The real Anakin seemed to notice it too, because he abruptly walked up to Palpatine and waved his hands in his face right in front of the man's nose. When he got a reaction, he backed away and stood quite still, staring at the chancellor in slowly dawning horror.

Sam took the opportunity to make a quick exit, taking Obiwan by the arm and murmuring a quick goodbye. He was out the door and down the hall, still dragging Obiwan along, the real Anakin's hologram floating behind them (since it was tied to Sam's location by a certain radius), still staring back towards the chancellor's door.

"Go away," Sam hissed at Anakin as loudly as he dared.

"What?" asked Obiwan as the image in the hologram flinched slightly and winked off.

"I said we have to get away," said Sam, not slowing down. He wouldn't feel secure until he was out of the building. Heck, he wouldn't feel secure until he was off the planet - or out of the galaxy and safely back in his own body.

"Yes, I figured that part out," replied Obiwan wryly, peeling Sam's fingers from his arm as they hurried along.

"Sorry," murmured Sam.

"Why are we running?" the other man asked. "I know he was unhappy about the report not being delivered, but a normal pace would ..."

Sam started to explain, but then stopped. Obiwan ground to a halt beside him, looking at him expectantly. Glancing at the walls and ceilings, Sam shook his head to himself and started off again. But now Obiwan seemed to understand his concerns and asked no more questions until they'd arrived at the public docking port. Walking away from the crowd waiting for the transport, the two men spoke so their voices carried away into the wind and not back inside the rotunda.

"The chancellor is Force-sensitive," Sam told him succinctly.

"How do you ..." began Obiwan, but then stopped himself. "Were you doing that? That double-image or Force-ventriloquism, or whatever it was; I don't know what to call it."

Sam nodded.

The other man thought a moment.

"He could detect it, couldn't he?" he said quietly, then looked squarely at Sam. "You know what this means?"

"He's the Sith Lord."

"We've got to warn the council."

"They'll never believe us. You said before they had to have verifiable proof."

"This isn't something you saw in a dream," Obiwan pointed out. "We have two witnesses. All you have to do is demonstrate what you did, and ..."

"I can't," Sam told him. "It's not something I have any control over." It was true; he had no way of summoning anyone from the project, though there had been many times he'd wished he could.

"So what happened in there was just a fortunate accident?" Obiwan asked.

Sam nodded, thinking, _a fortunate accident ..._ Had God deliberately planted Anakin's hologram in that office at the critical minute? If so, would He provide when they reached the council chamber?

Sadly, Sam realized he didn't possess enough faith to be sure. But there was something else he believed God _would_ intercede in - so long as the good side paid attention to His directions, anyway ...

"He's the one who's going to kill Padme," he said. "She needs to leave right now."

"You don't know that for a fact," Obiwan pointed out. "Although I agree it does seem a possibility."

The transport passed overhead in its path towards landing. Sam glanced up at it once, then told Obiwan what Palpatine had said at the ballet, about the Sith having a way to save people from dying.

"I just don't understand how he knew I'd had the dream," he finished. "That wasn't something I'd ever told him about."

Obiwan's face paled.

"He was targeting you," he said. "You're right, it does sound like he's the danger to her. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't intending to take her to the brink of death just so he could make the Sith look like heroes for bringing her back. Anakin ..." - he hesitated before continuing - "... it sounds as if he intended to make you his next apprentice."

The concept filled Sam with a sudden dread, and he realized suddenly and without ambiguity that this was the real reason he had jumped into Anakin. To keep him from falling for Palpatine's lies and succumbing to the darkness. Not to save Padme.

_No!_ thought Sam. She couldn't be meant to die, not after all this! He remembered Anakin's words, relayed to him through Al, about such an outcome shortly after they'd switched places: _He actually said, and I kid you not, that he'd give his soul to save her if he had to, so that anything you had to decide for him that didn't include her survival, he wasn't interested in._ Sam wanted to be sick; he'd never had to make such a decision in a jump before, and never wanted to again. Why was he even here? He just wanted to go home.

"He said the method wasn't something the Jedi would tell me," he related. "I thought it might be in the Masters-only archive at the temple. That's why I was so upset when I wasn't granted the rank of Master."

Obiwan blinked at him in surprise.

"_What_ Masters-only archive?" he asked, bewildered. "There's no such thing! The knowledge in the temple library is for the use of all. What reason would we have for censoring it?" He put his fingers to his temples and sighed heavily. "Oh, Anakin, I'm so sorry ..." he said. "I'm so sorry."

The transport landed; the doors on it slid open.

"I've got to see Padme," Sam told him. "She has to leave now. Today."

Obiwan nodded

"I'll go back to the temple," he said. "Palpatine will expect at least one of us to follow his orders; I'm sure he'll know if we don't." He looked up hopefully at Sam and added, "I do think that with the rest of what you've told me, I can make a good case for him at least being in league with the Sith. That ought to make them somewhat suspicious of any intelligence he passed - especially as he's so insistent on someone leaving immediately." He glanced over at the now-emptied transport and stroked his beard before continuing, "But if you're right and they won't listen, I'll contact Master Yoda directly. I don't know what more there is I can do, though, at this point."

Sam nodded, and they boarded the transport in silence.

------

Anakin sat alone in the dark silence of the imaging chamber, having told Dr. Alessa, who sat in the control chamber, to leave him be.

_Palpatine is the Sith Lord,_ he thought, over and over again._ Why couldn't I see it? Especially after the ... the Sith LEGEND!_ He pounded his fist on the floor angrily, feeling his rage take hold. And then, just as suddenly, he stopped himself, horrified, and, gasping, put his head in his hands. The anger threatened to return and he had to hold it consciously at bay, understanding that he'd been trained from an early age to use it to shut away his fear. Even now, his memory of Palpatine's encouragement, his instruction, to do exactly that increased the level of rage which threatened to burst through the block of his will. He'd been trained as a Sith at the same time he was also trained as a Jedi. And he had ended up, somehow, as both - and neither; if he was a less than perfect Jedi, he was certainly a very flawed Sith. But he couldn't allow himself to dwell on what Palpatine had done to him - what he'd allowed Palpatine to do. If he were to save Padme, he'd have to focus on one thing and one thing only: fulfilling his destiny and destroying the Sith, because he was absolutely certain now that Palpatine intended to use her as a hostage to control him.

Turning him into his newest apprentice might be his major aim - and what better way could he guarantee Anakin's acquiescence than to promise him his wife's life - conveniently leaving out the part about how he was responsible for her death in the first place! Well, he knew now how to prevent it without resorting to some arcane Sith method, if in fact one even really existed. He would have to destroy the Sith Lord first, quickly, before the man had time to act. Before he realized what was happening. But he would have to rid himself of his anger first, not only because he was too close to the dark side path already, but because if he did not, Palpatine would sense his motive and block his attack. He would have to appear to still be his faithful, if troubled, apprentice. But he could do it. He'd have to, for Padme's sake and the sake of their unborn child. He knew he'd be arrested afterward; no real evidence existed against the chancellor, and his action would be considered an assassination. But it didn't matter. He would not let the Sith Lord have Padme - or himself. His destiny would be fulfilled. Padme would live. And no matter what happened to him afterwards, he knew he would still have his soul. Everything was going to be fine.

------

Sam fumed as the elevator rose to the penthouse level; it seemed to take an inordinately long time to get there. When at last it stopped and the doors opened, he ran through them past a surprised Threepio, following his Force-sense to Padme's office, where she sat looking at something on the holonet.

"Anakin!" she exclaimed, happy to see him, but concerned for the way he was rushing in towards her.

"Padme," he said breathlessly, "You've got to leave. Now."

She blinked at him, obviously confused by his sudden insistence that she go when he'd argued for the delay until tomorrow only an hour before. Her dark eyes bored into his, hair long now and framing her face. A crease formed between her eyebrows and he saw, superimposed upon the face looking at him, Donna's face. It, too, was concerned, uncertain, confused. He swallowed.

_Please you have to leave now, _he thought he said. _Please, I couldn't stand it if I have to let you die. Please. I don't want to do this anymore; I want to go home. _

_Donna, I want to come home ..._

The lights in the room refracted, spilling their rainbow colors, shifting, and then winking out. He felt dizzy, disembodied, weightless. From far away he saw them, pinpoints of colored light, dancing, playing music, each its own unique tune. He had just realized he'd made the jump when the weight returned full-force to his body and he found himself sitting on a concrete floor, disoriented and blinking. He was in the imaging chamber at the project headquarters. Someone came running toward him in the glare of the lights, stopped, and knelt down. He squinted at the face.

"Donna," he whispered, and reached for his wife.

The End

* * *

_Author's Notes: In case it wasn't obvious in the above story, I will explain the discrepancies with the Quantum Leap premise here: Although he usually stays in his own body when he jumps, Sam changed physical bodies with Anakin because the Jedi would have immediately seen through the ruse otherwise. Sam also usually only jumps within the boundaries of his own lifetime. There was at least one exception for this during the show, however, and an excuse was made for that based on a relationship between Sam and the target. In the case of this story, the relationship between Anakin and Sam is that they are both "Chosen Ones," Sam in his time and galaxy and Anakin in his._

_In addition: Some people have asked what happened with Anakin when he went back and/or if there will be a sequel. This story ends like a Quantum Leap episode - where Sam jumps as soon as the critical moment has passed. Because he jumped, we can assume Anakin does not make the same mistake and does not fall to the darkness. Beyond that, however, you must use your own imagination. I have never had any interest in writing sequels for any of my stories. _


End file.
